Britain's Alan Parker to Get BAFTA Fellowship

LONDON – The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is to present filmmaker Alan Parker with the Academy Fellowship at the EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony in February.

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Parker's 40-year filmmaking career includes directing Madonna in Evita and Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet in The Life of David Gale.

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Martin Scorsese received the fellowship at the film awards in 2012.

BAFTA chairman John Willis described Parker as "a hugely distinctive filmmaker, and a man of uncompromising vision and personality."

Willis also noted that the 19 BAFTA awards Parker's films have won over his 40-year career "indicate the esteem in which he is held by his peers, as well as the outstanding nature of his work."

Parker added: "When you make your first film, you’re sure it will be your last. And then you squeeze your eyes together and suddenly, 40 years later, you’re at BAFTA getting an award like this. I’m of course enormously flattered and honored."

Knighted in 2002 for services to the British film industry and twice nominated for best director at the Oscars (for Midnight Express and Mississippi Burning), Parker has a resume that boasts a BAFTA best screenplay award for Bugsy Malone in 1975 and a best director BAFTA nod for Midnight Express.

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Other movies include The Commitments, Shoot The Moon, Pink Floyd The Wall, Mississippi Burning and Angela’s Ashes.

Parker is scheduled to pick up the accolade during this year's EE British Academy Film Awards ceremony Sunday, Feb. 10, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in the British capital.

Awarded annually by BAFTA, the fellowship is the highest accolade dished out for an individual and is given "in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film."

Previous recipients of the award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Christopher Lee.