00:00From the glitz and glamour on the red carpet at Cannes,
00:03one family business lies behind one of the most prestigious trophies in cinema,
00:08the Palme d'Or.
00:09And right here at Chopard is where it's made.
00:12Let's have a look inside their workshop.
00:28Over the past three decades,
00:30the making of the Palme d'Or has been in the hands of the Chopard family
00:33at its Swiss headquarters in Geneva.
00:37Every year, each award is carefully made with the same delicate methods.
00:43Caroline Schofeler, Chopard's co-president and artistic director,
00:47personally oversees the production from conception to creation.
00:52And her role in the process came about by chance.
00:56It's been 29 years that Chopard has produced the Palme d'Or.
01:01I had the honor to redesign it way back.
01:05Actually, we opened the boutique in front of the Palme.
01:09So, in my thoughts, I've always been a cinema lover of the sevens art.
01:17I thought we should open it during the film festival,
01:19as there would be, obviously, some celebrities and so on.
01:23Of course, I met the president at the time, Pierre Vieux, in Paris, some months before.
01:29And during the conversation, I was looking around his beautiful Parisian office.
01:34It was a real French gentleman.
01:37I said, that's the real palme.
01:39He was standing in his shelf.
01:41And he says, yes.
01:42And then he put it in front of me.
01:44And I'm like, ah.
01:45He says, yeah, well, we were thinking to sort of re-look it, re-style it.
01:51It's been 15 years.
01:53And I said, who produces it?
01:54And he said, I think a small atelier in Paris.
01:58I said, you know, my real job is not organizing glamorous dinners and parties.
02:03My real job is designing.
02:05I said, can I propose to you how this palme could be a little bit more aesthetical, elegant, glamorous?
02:13I said, sure.
02:13So basically, I left that day with the palme under my arm.
02:18And 29 years down the road, we are here.
02:24The life of the palme begins in the foundry,
02:27where the gold is mixed and melted with other metals
02:32to be readied for the workshop.
02:35Although Chopin have opened their doors for us to make this report,
02:39we've not been allowed to identify staff for security and safety reasons.
02:44Here is where the casting begins.
02:46Wax is pushed into a mold to make a model for a plaster cast,
02:50which the artist carefully controls and inspects,
02:53before putting it in a furnace, where it spends an entire night.
03:04Gold is reintroduced to fill the cavities in the mold.
03:17The plaster is then broken to reveal the raw palm,
03:21which is then cleaned up and ready for its next part.
03:27From one artisan's hand to another,
03:30the next steps for the palm are filing, finishing and polishing.
03:39Each maneuver is a delicate and painstaking task that can last several hours.
03:58The final step for the finished palm is being attached to a unique piece of rock crystal.
04:06Well, I think that's the most wanted trophy within the world of cinema,
04:12because there's only one palm.
04:14You have a lot of Oscars, a lot of Golden Globes,
04:18but there's actually only one palm.
04:21What changes every year is really,
04:23I mean, I was not allowed to touch when I redesigned
04:26the number of leaves, there's 19,
04:28because it's a depot, international registered,
04:34so I had to respect that.
04:36All the rest I was allowed to change.
04:38So the little Chopin touch, I think,
04:41would be that it is a little heart shape
04:46at the bottom of the leaf.
04:48Why a heart?
04:49Well, that's pretty symbolic for Chopin.
04:52I design a lot with hearts,
04:53heart shape, any type of stones.
04:57So, obviously, I gave it some flow,
05:00because it was very flat.
05:02It was like if a truck had run over it.
05:05So not very elegant.
05:06It was not 18-carat gold, either.
05:09It was gold-fitted.
05:11By now, it's not only 18-carat gold,
05:13it's also ethical gold.
05:15So I wanted to take this opportunity, if I could,
05:17to ask you about some of the jewels, of course,
05:19because it's not just about the Palme d'Or.
05:21What role do you have in that?
05:22Well, they're all sort of my babies.
05:25I've designed most of them.
05:27And since almost 20 years now,
05:32we always launched a collection
05:34called the Red Carpet Collection in Cannes,
05:37where we unveil this year 79 pieces,
05:40which go in the Red Carpet book.
05:4379 is in line with the years of the festival.
05:47So each year, I add a piece.
06:00Do you want to have...
06:01Don't drop it.
06:02Oh, absolutely not.
06:04That's the real thing.
06:05Wow.
06:05It's quite heavy.
06:06Yeah.
06:07Thank you very much.
06:08With that, we end this report.
06:11This is Kumbosilako,
06:13reporting from Chopard in Geneva.
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