Tyler Durden's Fight Club Blog

The Palme d'Or (English: Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition.^[1] It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film.^[2] From 1964 to 1974, it was replaced once again, by the Grand Prix du Festival.^[3]

Through 1954, the Jury of the Festival de Cannes awarded a "Grand Prix of the International Film Festival", with a new design each year from a contemporary artist. At the end of 1954, the Festival's Board of Directors invited several jewelers to submit designs for a palm, in tribute to the coat of arms of the City of Cannes.^[4] The original design by the jeweller Lucienne Lazon had the bevelled lower extremity of the stalkforming a heart, and the pedestal a sculpture in terracotta by the artist Sébastien.

In 1955, the first Palme d'Or was awarded to Delbert Mann for Marty, and it remained the highest award until 1964, when copyright issues with the Palme led the Festival to return to the Grand Prix. In 1975 the Palme d'Or was reintroduced and has since remained the symbol of the Cannes Film Festival, awarded every year to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition, and presented in a case of pure red Morocco leather lined with white suede.

Since its reintroduction, the prize has been redesigned several times. At the beginning of the 1980s, the rounded shape of the pedestal, bearing the palm, gradually transformed to become pyramidal in 1984. In 1992, Thierry de Bourqueney redesigned the Palme and its pedestal in hand-cut crystal. The current design from 1997 is by Caroline Scheufele at Chopard. A single piece of cut crystal forms a cushion for the 24-carat gold palm, which is hand cast into a wax mould and presented in a case of blue Morocco leather.^[5]