03/05/2012 - The Academy Award-winning actress will present Istvan Szabo's new film The Door, while her husband – producer and director Taylor Hackford – will also attend

The organizers of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival have announced that Dame Helen Mirren will be this year's recipient of the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema. Mirren will accept the statuette just a year after Dame Judi Dench did so at the opening ceremony of the festival.

Mirren will be also present to introduce the latest film by Istvan Szabo, who presided over the Karlovy Vary IFF Grand Jury last year, and in which she plays the main role. Szabo´s long-awaited film is based on a novel by Magda Szabo (not related to the director) and stars Martina Gedeck and Karoly Eperjes.

Mirren is one of Britain's most acclaimed actresses. She became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and has played a great number of roles on stage, TV and in film since, and has collaborated with film directors from British auteur Peter Greenaway to US legend Robert Altman. Not afraid of roles that Shakespearean actors often avoid, she has appeared in Tinto Brass's Caligula as well as the action comedy RED.

She has been honoured at the Cannes film festival and the Golden Globes and her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in Stephen Frears' The Queen earned her the Volpi Cup in Venice as well an Academy Award. “In 2003, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire,” adds KVIFF's press release.

Director and producer Taylor Hackford, who also presides over The Directors Guild of America, will join Dame Helen Mirren at the festival, which runs from June 29 – July 7. Other tributes previously announced will honor Michelangelo Antonioni, Reha Erdem and Jean Pierre Melville.