Ace director Mani Ratnam will be honoured withthe ' Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award' at the Venice Film Festival to be held in September, Venice Film Festival director Marco Muller announced at Cannes, just before the launch of Mani Ratnam's forthcoming Raavan (Raavanan in Tamil and Villan in Telugu).
Recent recipients of the award include Takeshi Kitano, Abbas Kiarostami, Agnes Warda and Sylvester Stallone. "Mani Ratnam is one of the greatest innovators in contemporary Indian cinema. He helped introduce the auteur concept to contemporary Bollywood. We are very proud to honour the work of the great Indian director Mani Ratnam," Marco Muller said.
The festival premiere of Raavan was attended by the director, music composer A.R. Rahman and lead actors Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan and Vikram. Both Hindi and Tamil versions will be screened at Venice Film Festival.