The Spanish director will receive the award at a ceremony on February 13 2011.

Spanish director/scriptwriter Mario Camus will receive an honorary Goya award for his achievements in film over the past 50 years, the Spanish Film Academy has confirmed.

The 75 year old Santander born director has won awards at several leading international festivals and ceremonies since the 1960s, including the Golden Bear at Berlin for The Beehive (La Colmena) in 1983; Cannes prizes for The Holy Innocents (Los Santos Inocentes) in 1984 and in 1993 Shadows In A Conflict (Sombras En Una Batalla) picked up the Goya award for best script.

Camus joked that his generation of directors, which includes respected names like Basilio Martin Patino, Miguel Picazo and Francisco Regueiro, do not receive many proposals for films these days. “The young people want to see films made by people of their generation, but we (older directors) have our own audience, mostly watching films in their armchairs at home.”

On receiving the news of the award, Camus said he was very grateful to everyone he had worked with in cinema and that “since the awards don’t take place until February I have plenty of time to prepare a speech about the Spanish film industry and the difficulties we face.”

The Goyas are Spain’s equivalent to the Oscars in recognition of local films and talent.