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.
00:17Over the past three decades, the making of the Palme d'Or
00:21has been in the hands of the Chopard family at its Swiss headquarters in Geneva.
00:26Every year, each award is carefully made with the same delicate methods.
00:32Caroline Schofiller, Chopard's co-president and artistic director,
00:37personally oversees the production from conception to creation.
00:41And her role in the process came about by chance.
00:46It's been 29 years that Chopard has produced the Palme d'Or.
00:50I had the honour to redesign it.
00:52And then, way back, I met the president at the time, Piafio, in Paris.
00:57During the conversation, I was looking around his beautiful Parisian office.
01:01It was a real French gentleman.
01:03I said, that's the real palm.
01:05It was standing in his shelf.
01:07And he says, yes.
01:09And then he put it in front of me.
01:10And I'm like, ah.
01:11He says, yeah, well, we were thinking to sort of re-look it, re-style it.
01:17It's been 15 years.
01:19I said, can I propose to you how this palm could be a little bit more aesthetical, elegant, glamorous?
01:26He said, sure.
01:27So basically, I left that day with the palm under my arm.
01:31And 29 years down the road, we are here.
01:35The life of the palm begins in the foundry, where the gold is mixed and melted with other metals to
01:43be readied for the workshop.
01:46Although Chopard have opened their doors for us to make this report, we've not been allowed to identify staff for
01:52security and safety reasons.
01:55Here is where the casting begins.
01:57Wax is pushed into a mold to make a model for a plaster cast, which the artist carefully controls and
02:03inspects, before putting it in a furnace, where it spends an entire night.
02:10Gold is reintroduced to fill the cavities in the mold.
02:19The plaster is then broken to reveal the raw palm, which is then cleaned up and ready for its next
02:26part.
02:29From one artisan's hand to another, the next steps for the palm are filing, finishing and polishing.
02:37Each maneuver is a delicate and painstaking task that can last several hours.
02:48The final step for the finished palm is being attached to a unique piece of rock crystal.
02:56Well, I think that's the most wanted trophy within the world of cinema, because there's only one panel.
03:03You have a lot of Oscars, a lot of Golden Globes, but there's actually only one panel.
03:11What changes every year is really, I mean, I was not allowed to touch, when I redesigned, the number of
03:17sleeves.
03:17There's 19, because it's a depot, international registered, so I had to respect that.
03:25All the rest, I was allowed to change.
03:28So the little Chopin touch, I think, would be that it is a little heart shape at the bottom of
03:35the leaf.
03:36Why a heart?
03:37Well, that's pretty symbolic for Chopin.
03:40I designed a lot with hearts, heart shape, any type of stones.
03:44So, obviously, I gave it some flow, because it was very flat.
03:50It was like if a truck had run over it, so not very elegant.
03:54It was not 18-karat gold, either. It was gold-fated.
03:59By now, it's not only 18-karat gold, it's also ethical gold.
04:03So I wanted to take this opportunity, if I could, to ask you about some of the jewels, of course,
04:07because it's not just about the Palme d'Or.
04:09What role do you have in that?
04:11Well, they're all sort of my babies. I've designed most of them.
04:14And since almost 20 years now, we always launch a collection called the Red Carpet Collection in Cannes.
04:23So where we unveil this year's 79 pieces, which go in the Red Carpet book.
04:2979 is in line with the years of the festival.
04:33So each year, I add a piece.
04:42Don't drop it.
04:43Oh, absolutely not.
04:45That's the real thing.
04:46Wow.
04:46It's quite heavy.
04:47Thank you very much.
04:50With that, we end this report.
04:52This is Kumbu Sulaco, reporting from Schoepard in Geneva.
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