Behind the Scenes from Choppard and the Palme d'or at Cannes, the other festival that Choppard sponsors!

The stress behind the shine: minor mishaps and long delays are the order of the day for the organizers. But thanks to their secrets and sleights of hand, all we saw was the show!

In 2001, the Cannes Festival nearly ended without one if its leading lights: the Golden Palm. After being held for the entire duration of the festival by particularly zealous customs officials, it arrived at the last minute on the day of the closing ceremony! Under normal circumstances, it would, of course, have been closely guarded at an undisclosed location throughout the festival.

The scene was set for the Chopard Trophy of 2002, to be awarded to Ludivine Sagnier and Hayden Christensen. Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele was on stage with Gilles Jacob and... no trophies! The members of the Chopard team suddenly realized that the trophies were still resting safely in their boxes. A high-speed race ensued, and then the reels of film in Venus gold came to the rescue of Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele, who had been forced to improvise a speech for over ten minutes.

In 2003, Diane Kruger was in the middle of filming Troy  with Brad Pitt. Delayed by a long workday, she arrived in a private jet, just a few minutes before she was due to climb the steps. With hair and makeup designed for the specific needs the film, Diane had to transform before attending the Festival. When she arrived on the tarmac, a whole team went to meet her in the jet. Renowned hairdresser John Nollet came with two cases of Evian water in order to wash her hair on board! In the evening, she glided serenely across the red carpet, displaying not a single sign of the stress that surrounded her arrival. The magic of the Festival...

Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele's love for pumps is inversely proportional to her shoe size, a mere 34! This means that she often has to settle for shoes that are too large for her, like on the evening in 2004 when, having victoriously attained the summit of the steps, she wound up falling... straight into the arms of Gilles Jacob! The Director of the Festival is always present at his strategic post to welcome the stars and sometimes, to catch them...

In 2005, Faye Dunaway also came to the Festival de Cannes. Careful with her food and cleverly cagey, she hid her Chopard jewellery in the organic grains she brought along, having no faith whatsoever in the safes.

In 2005, Cannes was waiting for Hilary Swank to arrive to present the Golden Palm. On her way there, the pilot of her private jet was extolling the beauty of Avignon and the wonders of its excellent olive oil, so Hilary asked him to turn the plane around so that she could buy a few bottles of this speciality très française... Meanwhile, in Cannes, her team was on the verge of hysteria, and the race against time began. In the end, she took such pleasure in climbing the steps that evening, she did it twice!