Acclaimed filmmaker Alexander Payne will be honoured with the Honorary Leopard Award at the 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, the organisers have announced.Payne, the director of critical hits like "Election", "The Descendants", "Nebraska" and most recently "The Holdovers", will receive the award, officially called Pardo d'Onore, on August 15 at the film gala, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland."The distinctive voice behind a slate of dryly funny modern classics, writer-director Alexander Payne has secured his place on the short list of filmmakers whose work can be said to define American cinema in the 21st century," the festival said in a press release, posted on the official website.Payne has won two Academy Awards, both for best adapted screenplay for "Sideways" (2004) and "The Descendents" (2012), as well as a BAFTA Award and two Golden Globes.Giona A Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, hailed Payne as an "erudite auteur with an encyclopedic cinephile knowledge"."Gifted with an unerring sense for the bittersweet facets of human comedy, he is a filmmaker with sensibilities at once exquisitely classical and modern. An impeccable director of actors who has worked with such names as Jack Nicholson, George Clooney, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Matt Damon, Bruce Dern, and Paul Giamatti, in Payne we find a knowledge of the savoir-faire of Hollywood cinema, its poetry, and its uniqueness.

"Author of a unique filmography in which he has always addressed the complexities of the human condition with a smile in a constant dialogue with audiences worldwide," he added.The Pardo d'Onore was introduced in 2017 and over the years, the festival has honoured many personalities from the world of cinema.Previous recipients include Manoel de Oliveira, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard, Abbas Kiarostami, Terry Gilliam, Alexander Sokurov, William Friedkin, Alain Tanner, Jia Zhang-ke, Leos Carax, Werner Herzog, Agnes Varda, Michael Cimino, Marco Bellocchio, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean-Marie Straub, Todd Haynes, Bruno Dumont, John Waters, John Landis, Kelly Reichardt, Harmony Korine, and Jane Campion.The Locarno Film Festival will run August 6 to 16.