Last night I attended the Cinema Against AIDS gala at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, the exclusive hotel at Cap d’Antibes and one of the most beautiful spots on the Riviera. I went with the wonderful and creative Chaz Ebert, wife of Roger, who was covering the festival for rogerebert.com.

The benefit brings together three elements of the 1 percent: the film community, fashion designers and billionaires. Each segment has a reciprocal relationship with the other. This 6- to 7-hour-long, extremely noisy event raised $11 million for arts research, fueled largely by a charity auction. This year’s items included art work by Andy Warhol and Damien Hurst, each of which garnered over €600,000 (about $780,000), and a film made by designer Karl Lagerfeld and produced by Harvey Weinstein, with the leading role played by the winning bidder. This item was first sold for €350,000, then sold again for over €500,000.

Auction presenters included Kirsten Dunst, Janet Jackson, Antonio Banderas, Adrien Brody, Heidi Klum, Diane Kruger, Kylie Minogue, Eva Herzigova and Asia Argento.