US actor Richard Gere, who recently moved to Spain, will be honored next month at the country’s top film honors, the Goya awards, the Spanish Film Academy said . The 75-year-old will receive an International Goya at the nationally televised awards ceremony in the southern city of Granada on February 8, it said in a statement. The academy praised Gere, who reached global stardom in films such as “Pretty Woman” and “American Gigolo”, for his “extraordinary contribution to the art of filmmaking, starring in some of the most iconic films in the history of cinema”.

It also hailed “the social commitment he has shown both personally and professionally” to various causes such as the plight of refugees and the homeless. The academy highlighted Gere’s “intense activism in favor of Tibetan autonomy and the preservation of Tibetan culture”. Gere is a longtime champion of Tibet who has met frequently with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader Beijing accuses of fomenting separatism in the Himalayan region.

China took control of Tibet in 1951, and the Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959. Tibet had previously been largely autonomous following the fall of the Qing dynasty, which lasted three centuries. Gere and his Spanish wife, Alejandra Silva, 41, moved to Madrid last year with their two sons. “We are happier than ever,” the actor said in an interview published in the latest version of the Spanish edition of “Elle” magazine when asked about their new life in Spain. - AFP