Fittingly, this one is all about the ruby – the vibrant birthstone for the month of July. Representing passion, prosperity and protection – early warriors would even carry them into battle – rubies hold a special place in the hearts of many, their fiery red colour forever associated with the sultry days of summer. It’s hard to believe such dynamic gemstones lay dormant beneath the earth’s surface for 500 million years. 

The rarest of gemstones, rubies are also frequently the most valuable, costing more per carat than colourless diamonds. “There is no coloured gemstone that fuels passion more than the ruby,” says author and fine jewellery specialist Joanna Hardy. And, in just over one minute, this compelling new film expresses this sense of excitement and drama. 

Produced in collaboration with Lambda Films, experts in high-end, contemporary video and design-led animation, it employs the most cutting-edge videography to depict, first, how rubies form at an elemental level, with a mixture of paint and oil poured to render an abstract representation of the process, showing the colour spectrum of rubies, from bluish to more orange-y red, as well as the most sought-after pure fluorescent reds. Gemfields’ rubies are showcased as an example of the gleaming finished product. 

The Ruby film also uses sculptured marble tableaus in 3D to set the evolution of rubies – from their origins deep beneath the soil of Mozambique to their present day popularity – into a historical framework. One of these features a horseman carrying the precious gemstones into battle; another shows modern-day shoppers with a cityscape backdrop. This is all accompanied by evocative music and a voiceover by an all-knowing narrator, who explains how atoms become minerals, and corundum welcomes chromium, to produce the “rich red veins” that make up rubies. 

“Responsibly sourced, treated with reverence, the rarest of all coloured gemstones”, is how the voiceover sums up the allure of rubies, which have long been adored by distinguished individuals from royalty to Hollywood A-listers, who wore them copiously at this year’s awards season. 

As a world-leading supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones, Gemfields has been mining rubies from the Montepuez mine in Mozambique – situated on the world’s largest ruby deposit, deep in the heart of Africa – since 2012. 

Gemfields has also been mining emeralds at the Kagem mine in Zambia since 2008 and felt that this four-part film series would be an engaging way to share the wealth of knowledge it has acquired surrounding coloured gemstones. The aim has also been for these playful, innovative films to inspire younger customers and to bridge the worlds of art and jewellery; this is something that Gemfields, a young company always seeking to do things differently, has sought to achieve with previous collaborations and hopes to do more of in the future.