Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman will visit Sweden for the first time to receive the newly instituted Honorary Dragon Award. He is the man behind hit movies like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

At the festival office in Göteborg, the heat is on to complete the programme and invite exciting guests. We can now reveal that one of these exciting guests is writer-director Charlie Kaufman.

He was born in New York in 1958 and worked as a teleplay writer for several years before his 1999 breakthrough with the script for Being John Malkovich (starring John Malkovich, John Cusack and Cameron Diaz), which was nominated for an Academy Award. In 2004, he received an Academy Award for the screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet). The first film he both wrote and directed was Synecdoche, New York (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman) in 2008. Synecdoche, New York was nominated for The Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award at Göteborg International Film Festival 2009.

In his films Charlie Kaufman often focuses on themes such as identity and crisis. He is known for innovative, twisted and philosophical stories and has worked with directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. He is one of few screenwriters that has reached stardom, but has also become known as a mythical figure who is considered media shy and chooses to stay away from the limelight.

– There are not many writers who manage to break through the cult of directors that exists in the film world, but Charlie Kaufman is one major exception. His cross-border scripts have earned him an "auteur" status even though he has consistently worked with recognized filmmakers. There is no mistaking a film by Charlie Kaufman – his originality is unsurpassed. We can not think of a more worthy recipient of our first Honorary Dragon Award, says Andreas Degerhammar, Head of International Programme at Göteborg International Film Festival.

The 34th Göteborg International Film Festival takes place January 28 to February 7 2011. Charlie Kaufman will visit the festival January 28 to January 31 and will receive the award at the opening gala, 28 January.