CANNES, France (AP) — The Palme d’Or is cinema’s answer to the papal conclave.

The top award of the Cannes Film Festival isn’t announced by a plume of white smoke, but its deliberations are shrouded in an almost-holy secrecy. While the world’s media is consumed by analyzing the merits and Palme chances of each film in the competition, the jury silently files in and out of theaters, their opinions left to pure conjecture.

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