VENICE — Venice was once again the stage of the DVF Awards and held a special meaning for Diane von Furstenberg in light of the death of her friend Gloria Steinem.

On Thursday evening, von Furstenberg dedicated the event to Steinem and the awards were bestowed on Hollywood legend and activist Jane Fonda; Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who waived her right to anonymity as the victim in a multiple rape case; American photojournalist Lynsey Addario, whose work often focuses on conflicts and human rights issues, especially the role of women in traditional societies; lawyer and prime minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, and Wawira Njiru, founder and chief executive officer of Food4Education, a social enterprise that is creating the blueprint for school 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 said. “I am thrilled to draw attention to their important work and to celebrate them in Venice.”

Earlier in the day, at von Furstenberg’s home in Venice, Fonda, feisty and brimming with energy, was generous with her time, meeting a small group of reporters. She thoughtfully elaborated on her answers and did not hold back from speaking her mind — as is par for the course with her.

“I am very, very grateful and very honored,” she said 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 said turning to von Furstenberg. [That morning, Fonda was unaware of Steinem’s death].

“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 question about her support of Mark Ruffalo’s First Amendment right to speak out about politics and powerful corporations regarding 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 potentially making an offer for CNN, the designer said briefly, “We wish…”

Conversation turned to Fonda’s battles over 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 in the 1970s around her position on the Vietnam War, she said it was important 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, however, she has even fewer concerns 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 said, citing the Committee for the First Amendment she founded a year ago.

“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 said, and the entertainment industry is being watched by the administration because, “as storytellers, it can give voice to the voiceless.”

About the future, she said: “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 said it was too soon to speak of a presidential candidate, while 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 said.

“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 against small modular reactors and liquefied natural gas, touched on AI — warning that “an unemployment Armageddon is going to happen,” climate crisis, civil rights, and same-sex marriage. “We are not going to allow that to be taken away.”

Asked about the meaning of being a feminist, she said 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 until Sept. 12, spoke of acting as still an important 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 fact, she is gearing up to play Sybil Van Antwerp, the main character and narrator of the bestselling epistolary novel “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans.

“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 said. “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 details, she said she was excited about other films in the pipeline.

The DVF Awards, held at the Goldoni Theater, were created in 2010 by the designer and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to recognize and support extraordinary women who are dedicated to transforming and inspiring the lives of other women, granting each honoree $100,000 for their nonprofit organization in order to further their work.

Over the years the DVF Awards have amplified the voices of women from more than 30 countries with grants to further their work in the areas of climate change, immigration, fighting human trafficking, promoting gender equality and preventing violence against women.