Chennai, Sep 9 (IANS): Filmmaker S.S Rajamouli considers it an honour to be chosen for the prestigious Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR) award for 2017. It will be conferred on him here on September 17 at a glittering ceremony.

The ANR award recognises film artistes whose body of work has made a lasting impact of outstanding artistic, cultural and commercial significance to the field of cinema.

"It's an honour to receive the prestigious ANR award and privileged to be alongside the legends who received it before," Rajamouli tweeted on Friday night.

On Friday, announcing Rajamouli's name, actor Akkineni Nagarjuna tweeted: "We are very honoured to announce the ANR award will be given to our own Rajamouli for his excellence in cinema.

Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu will be present on the occasion at the Shilpa Kala Vedhika.

Started in the year 2005, the previous awardees were Dev Anand, Shabana Azmi, Anjali Devi, Vyjayanatimala Bali, Lata Mangeshkar, K. Balachander, Hema Malini, Shyam Benegal and Amitabh Bachchan among others.