Oscar winner Michael Caine to be honored at European Film Awards

PanARMENIAN.Net - Michael Caine will be presented with the Honorary Award of the European Film Academy president and board at the European Film Awards ceremony on Dec. 12. It is only the third time the award has been bestowed in almost 30 years, Variety reports.

Agnieszka Holland, chairwoman of the European Film Academy board, and EFA president Wim Wenders said in a statement: “We have come to the decision that we are long overdue on paying special tribute to Sir Michael Caine. This recognition to an outstanding film personality is coming from the bottom of our hearts, and has only been presented twice in the almost 30 years of the European Film Awards: to our founding member Manoel de Oliveira and to Michel Piccoli.”

Caine has performed in more than 100 films. His most memorable roles include the spy Harry Palmer in “The Ipcress File” (1965), womanizer “Alfie” (1966), the gangster Charlie Croker in “The Italian Job” (1969), the hairdresser Milo Tindle in “Sleuth” (1972), the consul in “The Honorary Consul” (1983), a university professor in “Educating Rita” (1983), husband and lover in “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986), the music manager Ray Say in “Little Voice” (1998), the orphanage director in “The Cider House Rules” (1999), and the journalist Thomas Fowler in “The Quiet American” (2002).

He won Oscars for “The Cider House Rules” and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” and was Oscar nominated four other times.

Caine is nominated at the EFA awards this year for his performance in Paolo Sorrentino’s “Youth.” He has been EFA nominated once before, in 2001 for “Last Orders.”