De Laurentiis helped bring Hannibal Lecter to the screen

Director Bernardo Bertolucci presented the award to the 84-year-old producer in a ceremony on the Venice Lido.

De Laurentiis has produced a string of hit films over the years including Silence Of The Lambs and Flash Gordon.

He is currently working on a movie about the life of Alexander The Great, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Born in Italy in 1919, De Laurentiis worked as an extra, actor and director before producing his first film at the age of 20.

In the 1950s he formed a production company that went on to produce some of the most famous Italian films of the era, including Roberto Rossellini's Europa (1951).

Lecter films

He also built a studio, Dinocotta, which was used for John Huston's classic The Bible in 1960. Soon after, De Laurentiis moved to the US.

In the 1970s and 1980s he made his name by producing films such as Serpico, Three Days of the Condor, King Kong, Flash Gordon and The Bounty.

Later on in the Eighties he masterminded the first of the Hannibal Lecter films, Manhunter (1986), and was also producer of Hannibal (2001) and the Manhunter remake Red Dragon (2002).

De Laurentiis' biopic of Alexander the Great is being directed Moulin Rouge's Baz Luhrmann.