Spain film festival honours Hoffman

Dustin Hoffman will be honoured with a special lifetime achievement award by Spain's top film festival, organisers announced Friday. The award is "a tribute to one of Hollywood's greatest actors, winner of two Academy Awards and with a brilliant career behind him," the San Sebastian International Film Festival said in a statement. Hoffman, 75, will receive a special award marking the 60th anniversary of the festival in northern Spain, the oldest and most prestigious event of its kind in the Spanish-speaking world. The award ceremony will close the September 21-29 festival. Hoffman has starred in emblematic American movies from "The Graduate" to "Midnight Cowboy", "Straw Dogs", "All the President's Men", "Marathon Man", "Kramer vs. Kramer", "Tootsie" and "Rain Man". But in San Sebastian he will present his directorial debut: "Quartet", set in a home for retired opera singers. Three of the residents organise a concert every year to celebrate Giuseppe Verdi's birthday. But their peaceful life is disrupted by the arrival of one of the trio's ex-wife, and the potential of her expanding their group to a quartet. Others to be honoured with Donostia awards during the festival are director Oliver Stone, American actors John Travolta and Tommy Lee Jones, and Scottish actor Ewan McGregor.