STORY: Famed actors, directors and musicians converged on Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc for the amfAR charity gala

held Thursday on the sidelines of the 78th Cannes Film Festival.

With tickets starting at $25,000, the charity dinner raises money for HIV/AIDS research.

The gala, running since 1993, was held this year amid growing concerns over what U.S. President Donald Trump’s budget and staffing cuts could mean for AIDS research and prevention.

AmfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost believes these cuts will have a big impact on the charity’s work:

“I’ll be honest. At first it was shock. I don’t think anybody expected that we would see this kind of cut to our global health programs. So at first it was shock, then it was a bit of anger. And now it is really driven by motivation, desire to change and to rebuild the response because our work has gotten harder. And there’s no question that more people will be getting HIV and more people will be dying of AIDS as a result of these cuts.”

:: March 24, 2025

The United Nations AIDS agency warned in March that there could be 2,000 new HIV infections per day, globally because of the U.S. funding freeze.

And a ten-fold increase in related deaths.

“Sing Sing” actor Colman Domingo told Reuters that he was concerned about the situation:

“I feel like we have to do everything we can to amplify and help. We’ve made so many strides in recent years, so we can’t go backwards. So I feel like, you know, it takes, you know, places like amfAR. I think it’s about the people making sure that we take care of other people and we don’t just leave it just to governments.”

Michelle Rodriguez from the “Fast and Furious” franchise told Reuters that she supports the event because the charity saves lives:

“The United States used to be a big supporter of research for various diseases around the world, and their recent, you know, DOGE (America’s Department of Government Efficiency) removal of a lot of those resources globally has affected the AIDS community profoundly. And I think that now becomes more important than ever, the work that amfAR does, not only in the research to generate drugs, I mean, just the advocacy that they have globally, you know, with their impact that they’ve had.

The charity dinner has so far raised nearly $300 million for its research programs, according to the organizer.