DVF Awards to Celebrate Jane Fonda and Global Activists at Venice Ceremony
The 17th annual DVF Awards will take place in Venice on Sept. 3, overlapping with the Venice Film Festival. Honorees include Jane Fonda, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, photojournalist Lynsey Addario, and others. Tina Brown and Karlie Kloss will present, with a musical performance by Noa and Mira Awad.
The DVF Awards ceremony will unfold at Teatro Carlo Goldoni in Venice, strategically timed to intersect with the Venice Film Festival's international media attention. Since their 2010 launch through the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, the awards have distributed grants to honorees' chosen nonprofit organizations, amplifying work across environmental advocacy, political leadership, journalism, education, and survivor support.
This year's honorees represent distinct spheres of influence: Fonda's decades of activism, Mottley's national leadership, Addario's conflict-zone photography, Njiru's school-feeding programs, and Pelicot's survivor advocacy. Presenters Tina Brown and Karlie Kloss join performers Noa and Mira Awad, whose collaboration bridges cultural divides through music.
This year's honoree roster may broaden public awareness of pressing global issues, from climate policy to survivor rights, by attaching celebrity visibility to grassroots causes. The Venice timing could amplify these stories to an international arts audience, potentially inspiring philanthropic engagement or shifting cultural conversations around women's leadership. However, the event's high-profile framing may also risk reducing complex activism to ceremonial recognition, with the awards' true impact depending on whether the accompanying grants meaningfully sustain the honorees' ongoing work.