Costa-Gavras, Kamal Haasan to be honoured at Mumbai fest

Acclaimed French filmmaker Costa-Gavras and Indian actor-director Kamal Haasan will be felicitated with the Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 15th edition of Mumbai Film Festival.

Academy Award-winner Costa-Gavras is known for his political thrillers like "Z", "Missing", "The Little Apocalypse" and "Amen".

Gavras has also been conferred with the title of French knighthood. He has been on the jury of various film festivals and has won numerous international film awards.

Mumbai Film Festival, an initiative of the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), starts from Oct 17 and over 200 films from 65 countries will be screened at the eight-day festival.

"We are honoured to confer the Lifetime Achievement Award on Costa-Gavras. His films have been loved and celebrated by millions of cinema lovers worldwide. We are humbled that he has agreed to receive this award," Shyam Benegal, chairman, MAMI, said in a statement.

Kamal Haasan has recently completed 50 years in the industry and he has over 190 films to his credit, across genres and languages like Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. He is best known for his performances in films like "Moondram Pirai", "Nayagan", "Pushpak", "Appu Raja" and "Hey Ram".

"He is a legend in every sense of the term. He is a writer, singer, director, lyricist and an actor par-excellence. We are extremely honoured to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Kamal Haasan," Benegal added.