Filmmaker George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars films, will be honoured with a special award from the San Francisco Film Society next year, the group said on Tuesday.

Lucas will receive the Irving "Bud" Levin Award created to mark the 50th anniversary of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which takes place from April 26 to May 10.

"Cinema before George Lucas and cinema after George Lucas are two entirely different things," Graham Leggat, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, said in an interview. "You can't say that about very many people when you come right down to it.

"There are lots of wonderful people, but for that specific combination of flair, showmanship, innovation, love of film, very, very few people fit the same mold."

Lucas gained his first big success as writer and director of American Graffiti, and then created a new era of special-effects films as the creator of Star Wars. He later launched the Indiana Jones film franchise with director Steven Spielberg.

The Levin award is named after the man who founded the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1957 to compete with the European festivals in Venice, Cannes, and Berlin.