The Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts was given on Thursday to Austrian filmmaker, Michael Haneke, whose film "Love" had won the 2013 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The prestigious prize is one of eight handed out every year by the Prince of Asturias Foundation and the first to be designated for 2013.

The 61-year-old Haneke was chosen out of a total of 33 candidates from countries including Argentina, the United States, Estonia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Serbia and Zimbabwe.

His candidacy was proposed by Rudolf Lennkh, who is the Austrian Ambassador to Spain. The official Prince of Asturias Awards website explains that the man, who is considered the "poet of the cinema of discomfort," has produced films which highlight a "penetrating, radical gaze on society," which has allowed him to become "one of the leading auteurs of European cinema."

In 2012, Haneke's film "Love" also won the Palme D'Or at Cannes and the Golden Globe.

The Prince of Asturias Awards was first staged in 1981 and awards are given in categories such as Arts, Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Technical Scientific Research, Literature, International Cooperation and Sports. Meanwhile, the Concord award is announced in September.

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