(3 December 2005 2:00 pm)

MUMBAI: The Director's Guild of America (DGA) president Michael Apted has announced that director Clint Eastwood will receive the DGA's Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his career in directing.

The 58th Annual DGA Awards will be held on 28 January, 2006.

Apted said, "Clint Eastwood is the consummate filmmaker. As one of the most prolific, versatile directors in the history of the medium, there isn't a genre that Clint Eastwood hasn't mastered in the more than 25 films he has directed over the past 35 years. The DGA is proud to honor his deft craftsmanship and brilliant vision with its Lifetime Achievement Award. His ongoing body of work continues to touch generations of moviegoers and bring huge audiences into movie theaters. He does it all with great class, intelligence, and style."

The DGA Lifetime Achievement Award winner is selected by the present and past presidents of the Guild. In the Guild's 70-year history, only 31 directors have been recognised with the honour as the award is not presented every year. Eastwood now joins this illustrious list, which includes Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra and John Ford.

Earlier this year Eastwod won the DGA award for Million Dollar Baby.