Milos Formanwill receive the Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing atthe 47th San Francisco International Film Festival, which runs from Apr 15-29.

The Award willbe presented by Danny DeVito on Apr 22 at a black tie gala in honour of Formanand Oscar winning actor Chris Cooper, who will receive the Peter J Owens Award.

"The films ofMilos Forman evince an eclectic and questing nature and portray the vagaries ofhuman beings with great humour and pathos," Roxanne Messina Captor, executivedirector of the San Francisco Film Society, said in a statement.

Forman was bornin Czechoslovakia in February 1932 and earned worldwide acclaim for his work,including Oscar wins for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1976) and Amadeus (1985) and a nomination in 1997 for ThePeople Vs Larry Flint.

Previousrecipients of the Film Society's directing award include Robert Altman, ClintEastwood, Abbas Kiarostami, Satayajit Ray, Robert Bresson and Akira Kurosawa.