AmfAR at Cannes

AmfAR, an acronym for the American Foundation for AIDS Research, was founded in 1985 through the merger of two organizations: the National AIDS Research Foundation and the AIDS Medical Foundation. This creation was a response to a major health emergency. In the late 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic progressed uncontrollably, decimating communities and paralyzing collective action. Dr. Mathilde Krim, a renowned virologist, alongside pioneering physicians such as Larry Mass and Michael Gottlieb, laid the foundations for an institution designed to reverse the course of the pandemic.

Since its inception, amfAR has established itself as a major player in global HIV research funding. The organization has invested over 700 million dollars in clinical trials and prevention programs. Its approach rests on two complementary pillars: financing cutting-edge scientific research and mobilizing governments toward robust public health policies. With offices spread across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, amfAR enjoys worldwide reach, allowing it to influence international institutions and coordinate research efforts on a global scale.

The amfAR Gala at Cannes emerged in the mid-1990s, capitalizing on the exceptional presence of global talent that the Cannes Film Festival attracts each year. The concept was simple yet ingenious: transform this convergence of influential personalities into a large-scale fundraising event. Early editions were characterized by prestigious auctions, carefully selected artistic performances, and moments of exclusive networking among high-profile participants. These elements gradually attracted an increasingly selective circle of potential donors.

By the turn of the 2000s, the amfAR Gala reached a turning point. It became an unmissable event for the international jet-set, generating worldwide media visibility. Fundraising amounts increased tenfold, moving from millions to tens of millions of dollars per edition. Simultaneously, the event’s format grew in complexity and richness. International performances by renowned artists, haute couture fashion shows presenting original creations, and artistic installations progressively transformed the gala into an immersive experience merging luxury with social commitment. This evolution reflected a growing ambition: to establish the event not merely as a fundraising platform, but as a cultural manifestation of the highest caliber.

Today, the amfAR Gala at Cannes stands as one of the world’s most significant fundraising events. Each edition generates between 20 and 40 million dollars, directly reinvested in research and prevention programs. As of 2026, the event takes place at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Cap d’Antibes.

The gala begins in late afternoon. Guests arrive progressively, dressed in their finest attire, while the first “silent” auctions commence. Prestigious lots—ranging from luxury watches to privatized journeys to the world’s most exclusive destinations—are made available to participants. This initial segment allows organizers to begin fundraising while creating an atmosphere of anticipation.

The heart of the evening centers on a gala dinner served with elaborate staging. Tables are arranged strategically, bringing together major figures around humanitarian concerns. Throughout the meal, speeches and testimonies punctuate each course. Researchers present scientific advances funded by amfAR, while patients and activists testify to the concrete impact of treatments and prevention programs. These interventions aim to remind participants of the urgency of the cause while inspiring them to commit even further.

Public auctions constitute the climactic moment of the evening. Exceptionally valuable lots are presented successively: bespoke journeys to the world’s most prestigious destinations, original artworks of immeasurable value, jewelry from renowned jewelers, privileged access to exclusive private events. It is not uncommon for a single lot to be awarded for hundreds of thousands, or even a million dollars. This escalation of amounts reflects mobilization around a cause perceived as fundamental.

Between auction phases, high-level artistic performances punctuate the evening. Internationally renowned musical artists perform, alternating with dance numbers or artistic creations specially conceived for the occasion. Each artist contributes their support free of charge or at reduced cost, directly furthering fundraising efforts. These interludes maintain the evening’s momentum while symbolizing the unity of global talent around a humanitarian objective. In certain years, a haute couture fashion show is integrated into the program, presenting original creations by major designers and attracting international media attention.

The composition of the amfAR Gala’s attendees reveals the global structure of influence that the event mobilizes. Invitations are precious and reserved for a select circle of personalities: actors and directors who have won cinema’s highest honors, musicians and artists of worldwide renown, leaders of luxury houses and recognized haute couture designers, billionaire entrepreneurs and established philanthropic figures, journalists and content producers with significant media visibility, and high-level scientists bringing their expertise and testimonies. In certain years, important government representatives attend to symbolize political support for the cause.

This composition creates a unique social alchemy where scientific authority, cultural prestige, economic resources and civic engagement converge. This particular assembly allows the gala to function as a worldwide echo chamber: commitments made at Cannes resonate far beyond the Côte d’Azur, influencing public perception of the fight against HIV/AIDS and mobilizing global actors around shared objectives.

Since the gala’s inception at Cannes, cumulative sums have reached hundreds of millions of dollars. With each edition regularly breaking new records, this demonstrates the growing force of mobilization. The 2024 edition generated approximately 32 million dollars, establishing a new peak for the event. These amounts reflect a global strategy for deploying resources against a major pandemic.

The allocation of funds raised at Cannes follows rigorous impact logic. A substantial portion finances innovative clinical trials designed to test new treatments, while another supports prevention and screening programs in regions where HIV’s burden remains heaviest. AmfAR also dedicates resources to ensuring access to antiretrovirals in low and middle-income countries, bridging gaps left by insufficient public efforts. In parallel, the organization invests in political advocacy, seeking to influence government decision-makers toward more ambitious public health policies. Finally, scholarships and research grants support emerging young researchers, ensuring generational renewal of scientific capacity for pandemic control.

AmfAR’s investments have facilitated several major milestones in the fight against HIV/AIDS. During the 1990s, the emergence of the first combination therapies known as “triple therapy” radically transformed HIV prognosis. This infection, previously considered a short-term death sentence, became a manageable chronic disease for patients with access to these treatments. AmfAR played a decisive role in funding preclinical research and early clinical trials that enabled this therapeutic breakthrough.

The discovery that HIV-positive individuals with undetectable viral loads could not transmit the virus summarized in the slogan “U=U: Undetectable equals Untransmittable” revolutionized prevention. This understanding, consolidated through multiple longitudinal studies supported by amfAR, enabled the lifting of stigma associated with people living with HIV and opened new perspectives for normal life. In parallel, the development of PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis), a strategy using antivirals as a preventive tool for high-risk individuals, partly relied on amfAR’s funding and advocacy to democratize its access. Currently, the organization supports several ambitious research programs aimed at discovering a lasting cure: genetic editing, immunotherapy and therapeutic vaccines constitute multiple fronts on which amfAR-funded researchers work.

The Cannes Gala is part of an annual calendar of fundraising events that amfAR orchestrates on a global scale. New York hosts a major gala in September, benefiting from the city’s aura and concentration of great fortunes. Los Angeles organizes an edition in October, immersed in the heart of the American film industry. Hong Kong hosts a gala in February, designed to mobilize Asian elites and strengthen amfAR’s presence in this region of the world. Each event responds to a particular geographic and sociocultural logic, adapting its format and participants to local reality.

Cannes nevertheless remains the pinnacle of this calendar. The convergence of the Cannes Film Festival, which attracts an unparalleled density of global talent to a single location, creates conditions of uniqueness that no other gala can replicate. The Festival’s worldwide media coverage amplifies the amfAR Gala’s reach, conferring upon it a planetary visibility that New York or Los Angeles events, despite their importance, cannot match. This is why Cannes remains the moment when amfAR deploys the full ambition of its advocacy and fundraising efforts.

The amfAR Gala at Cannes has traversed more than two decades without losing its capacity to mobilize and inspire wonder. Several factors explain this remarkable endurance. First, the unresolved urgency of the cause. With more than 40 million people living with HIV worldwide, and still no accessible and affordable cure, research remains an absolutely paramount imperative. This undeniable urgency reminds each participant why this evening merits the exceptionally intense commitment it demands.

Second, the organization’s proven excellence. AmfAR and its teams have honed over the years an infallible expertise in conceiving and executing this evening. Every detail, from the selection of invited artists to the staging of auctions, is carefully considered and reconsidered to maximize emotional impact and participant generosity. This mastery of event production inspires confidence and loyalty among participants, who know in advance they will experience an exceptional evening.

Third, Cannes’s particular aura as a convergence point. Each May, the French city attracts a density of talent, power and influence that few other places can concentrate. The amfAR Gala fully capitalizes on this unique dynamic, transforming the fortuitous presence of major figures into organized mobilization around a specific objective.

Finally, amfAR’s transparency and efficiency in fund utilization. Unlike some philanthropic organizations that communicate little about the fate of their resources, amfAR regularly publishes data on funding allocation and concrete results of supported research. This transparency inspires confidence among donors, ensuring their contributions translate into measurable scientific progress rather than disproportionate administrative costs.

The amfAR Gala at Cannes transcends the classical model of a fundraising event. It is rather an annual manifestation of what voluntary and organized mobilization can accomplish against a global health pandemic. At each edition, hundreds of millions of dollars raised are redeployed toward clinical research, prevention, treatment and political advocacy, saving lives and bringing humanity closer to a viable cure.

Each auction, each artistic performance, each scientific testimony during the evening embodies a shared conviction: that knowledge, commitment and resources, when collectively mobilized, can transform the course of a pandemic. This power of collective mobilization explains why, year after year, the world’s greatest names gather in Cannes not principally for the event’s prestige, but to contribute to a cause which, though long-standing, remains urgently contemporary.