VENICE — Venice was as soon as once more the stage of the DVF Awards and held a particular that means for Diane von Furstenberg in mild of the loss of life of her pal Gloria Steinem.
On Thursday night, von Furstenberg devoted the occasion to Steinem and the awards had been bestowed on Hollywood legend and activist Jane Fonda; Gisèle Pelicot, the French lady who waived her proper to anonymity because the sufferer in a a number of rape case; American photojournalist Lynsey Addario, whose work usually focuses on conflicts and human rights points, particularly the position of ladies in conventional societies; lawyer and prime minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, and Wawira Njiru, founder and chief govt officer of Food4Education, a social enterprise that’s creating the blueprint for college feeding in Africa.
“It is more important than ever that this year’s honorees are incredible and brave women who have had the courage to fight, the strength to survive and the leadership to inspire,” von Furstenberg stated. “I am thrilled to draw attention to their important work and to celebrate them in Venice.”
Earlier within the day, at von Furstenberg’s house in Venice, Fonda, feisty and brimming with power, was beneficiant together with her time, assembly a small group of reporters. She thoughtfully elaborated on her solutions and didn’t maintain again from talking her thoughts — as is par for the course together with her.
“I am very, very grateful and very honored,” she stated of the award. “If I’m remembering correctly, I think the first time that I spent any time with Diane, we were inducted at the same time into the Women’s Hall of Fame, and it was Gloria Steinem who inducted Diane [in 2019]. This was in Seneca Falls, where the women’s movement began in the United States, and you spoke so well,” she stated turning to von Furstenberg. [That morning, Fonda was unaware of Steinem’s death].
Jane Fonda
“I was so moved by what Gloria said about Diane and her life and her resilience. I get emotional about it. It’s incredible. Diane’s creativity, the way she’s built her life. I’m very impressed and moved by it. Plus, I love the way she looks. She’s a lion. She’s like a natural wild creature, this is what you think when you see her. You are so beautiful.”
“I said you are a badass,” von Furstenberg chimed in, smiling.
Responding to a query about her assist of Mark Ruffalo’s First Amendment proper to talk out about politics and highly effective firms concerning the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger, she reiterated: “I am hopeful that we can stop it. The merger would be terrible for consumers. Prices would go up. Thousands and thousands of people would lose their jobs, and as a creative, the fewer studios there are, the fewer places that we can take our products. We lose bargaining power. Unions lose their power. There’s a very robust and growing movement to stop the merger, and it’s sad for me because I like David Ellison [chief executive officer of Paramount Skydance] very much. David and Skydance financed ‘Grace and Frankie,’ my seven-year-long run for Netflix, and I got to know him, and I like him, but that doesn’t change things. This is not a personal thing. This is what it will do to the entertainment industry, which is already suffering terribly.”
When one reporter cited a rumor about von Furstenberg’s husband Barry Diller doubtlessly making a proposal for CNN, the designer stated briefly, “We wish…”
Conversation turned to Fonda’s battles through the years. “I was 33 years old when I became an activist, meeting entirely different kinds of people, a world I didn’t know existed, people who are my friends now. My life before then was so silly, so nothing, so meaningless.”
Recalling the backlash within the Nineteen Seventies round her place on the Vietnam War, she stated it was vital to be “part of a movement. I was not alone. Mark is part of a movement and he’s not alone. This is a time when we can’t be alone. I knew in my heart that what I had done was not what they accused me of and so you don’t mind it, you just keep on, and now they’re dead, and I’m popular again, but I’m glad that I know what it feels like to be hated. It’s not good, but again, if you’re not alone, it really helps. But it’s scary.”
Now, nevertheless, she has even fewer issues about voicing her beliefs.
“I’ve had my life. [President Donald] Trump can do nothing to me. I’m not scared, but that’s not true for everyone, and I understand that, and that’s why I’m encouraging people to join the movement,” she stated, citing the Committee for the First Amendment she based a 12 months in the past.
“More and more people are speaking out because their whole lives are at risk right now. AI could take everything away, and then data centers are being put in their neighborhoods, so there’s been a shift in the U.S. Things are changing. Republicans and Democrats alike are saying ‘no, you’re not going to put a data center in my community.’ We can see now that even MAGA members are not liking the fact that their leaders are profiting off misery and cruelty. They don’t like the chaos that’s happening. They don’t like the way the immigrants are being treated,” she contended.
“Courage is contagious,” she stated, and the leisure trade is being watched by the administration as a result of, “as storytellers, it can give voice to the voiceless.”
About the longer term, she stated: “I’m absolutely hopeful. Hope is different than optimism. Optimism is saying everything is all right. But you don’t do anything to make it so. Hope comes with action. It’s a muscle, and the reason that you know I can be hopeful is because I’m giving everything I have to try to make things be right again, and so I’m constantly in contact with people who are doing the same, and people who are changing, people who are making a difference, I’m helping them get elected. I have the Jane Fonda Climate Pact. We’ve elected 250 climate champions. These are people who see the problem. Our elected officials, Democrats and Republicans, they take money from these corporations, and so they’ll never vote in any way that could hurt the corporation, so we don’t get the legislation we need to solve the problems we have.”
She stated it was too quickly to talk of a presidential candidate, whereas citing Jon Ossoff, Justin Pearson and Peggy Flanagan. “Imagine if we had senators who thought ‘the decision I’m going to make now — how is it going to affect seven generations from now?’”
Von Furstenberg marveled at Fonda’s spirit. “You are so much stronger than you’ve ever been,” she stated.
“Well, I’m almost 90, and so it’s easier to be so,” Fonda responded. “I’ve always been brave. I just didn’t always know what to be brave about until my mid-30s. It’s like resilience, you’re either born with it, or you’re not.”
She cautioned towards small modular reactors and liquefied pure gasoline, touched on AI — warning that “an unemployment Armageddon is going to happen,” local weather disaster, civil rights, and same-sex marriage. “We are not going to allow that to be taken away.”
Asked in regards to the that means of being a feminist, she stated it’s “being in charge of my life, having agency, knowing that I have a right to strive to reach my highest potential in every way, just as a man does.”
Fonda, who was not planning to attend the Venice Film Festival, which runs till Sept. 12, spoke of performing as nonetheless an vital a part of her life.
“After five years of not working as an actor, I have to confess, much as I love the work that I do with my comrades in the movement, I miss the process of becoming somebody else. It is such a thrilling process. I love it. I miss it.”
In reality, she is gearing as much as play Sybil Van Antwerp, the primary character and narrator of the bestselling epistolary novel “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans.
DVF Awards 2026
“I’m doing it for Lionsgate with the film company called Hidden Pictures. We have a good first draft, and we’re looking for a director,” she stated. “I read the book, it’s a brilliant book and I thought it could not be made into a movie, but then this young writer, Cat Vasko, made a pitch, and it seemed to work. There was a bidding war. It was such fun.” While mum on particulars, she stated she was enthusiastic about different movies within the pipeline.
The DVF Awards, held on the Goldoni Theater, had been created in 2010 by the designer and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to acknowledge and assist extraordinary girls who’re devoted to reworking and galvanizing the lives of different girls, granting every honoree $100,000 for his or her nonprofit group in an effort to additional their work.
Over the years the DVF Awards have amplified the voices of ladies from greater than 30 international locations with grants to additional their work within the areas of local weather change, immigration, combating human trafficking, selling gender equality and stopping violence towards girls.