Palme d'Or: High art meets high fashion and mass appeal
So in a few hours they will decide who will win the 70th Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It's been a contentious festival with the conflict over Netlfix screening its movies here and controversial movies such as the brutal Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here.
There's been fashion with gorgeous red carpet dresses and dazzling jewellery. There have been the usual queues of cinephiles carrying placards looking for last-minute tickets and amazingly tall wannabe models and actresses hoping for last minute invitations to the red carpet.
But more than anything else, Cannes has continued to underline its commitment to artistic freedom and creative liberty — except when it comes to Netlfix screenings. As Gilles Jacob, honorary president of the festival put it to me, "Netlfix will never win the war with the city of Cannes because the board of the festival comprises several theatre directors and they will never allow the spectacle of viewing to be sidelined."
Unless, of course, he added, Martin Scorsese makes a movie for Netlfix.
The French love certain artitsts and as the badge with the card says: "It's always the same ones in Competition anyway."
It's a joke but like all humour has a kernel of truth.
Cannes loves certain directors and they get welcomed back again and again. So the director of the strange and surreal The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos, was back with The Killing of a Sacred Deer, another odd film with Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell. who starred with each other again in Sofia Coppola's much loved The Beguiled.
The two actors have been crowned the unofficial king and queen of the festival. There was the stark and sharp Loveless by Andrei Zvyagintsev which portrays the dark heart of contemporary Russian society.
There was Bong Jon Hoo's Okja, starring Tilda Swinton, another Cannes favourite, playing a version of Ivanka Trump as a wicked corporate titan. There was Michael Haneke, another favourite, with Happy End, and the crowd pleasing Robin Campillo's 120 Beats Per Minute, a movie that takes people back to the '90s and the work of Act-Up, an organisation fighting for AIDS victims.
As Caroline Scheufele, whose company Chopard has redesigned the Palme d'Or and has been associated with the festival for the past 20 years, says Cannes is all about discovery, about seeing new work, discovering new artists and recognising fresh talent.
She has done much to do so herself, with Chopard Trophy for Best Male Revelation and Best Female Revelation of the year. Since 2001, she has recognised actors who have gone on to become major stars, from Audrey Tautou to Marion Cotillard.
"It's easy for the George Clooneys and Julia Roberts but not so much for young acrtists struggling for recognition."
Cannes is the perfect blend of art and commerce, from its high fashion stores rubbing shoulders with high cinema to its Hollywood blockbuster billboards to its independent film market; from its serious film lovers to its young men and women dressed in their tuxedos and their party frocks hoping to be recognised.
But the best part is it's a festival everyone can be a part of, from the communications student standing outside Palais des Festivals looking for an invite to the tourists waiting patiently by the barricades of the red carpet and festival hotels like The Martinez hoping for a selfie with the stars.
If you hang around long enough you can catch any star — I got lucky with Diane Kruger and Mathieu Amalric, the former starring in In The Fade, Fatih Akin's violent thriller, and the latter in the much criticised Ismael's Ghosts by Arnaud Desplechin. But it's not about just celebrity watching.
Everyone wants to watch the movies and everyone has an opinion on who will win the big awards. And why not? As Jacob says, cinema cannot change the world but at least it can open our eyes to its possibilities.