BERLIN (REUTERS) - British actress Charlotte Rampling said on Thursday (Feb 14) she was moved to be awarded the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.

The 73-year-old, who started her career as a model, is famed for starring in arthouse films.

She is best known for playing a concentration camp survivor in Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter (1974).

Rampling has starred in a wide range of other films, including Georgy Girl (1966) with Lynn Redgrave, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980) and several movies by French director Francois Ozon in the 2000s.

In 2015, she won the Berlinale festival's Silver Bear for Best Actress in her role as a wife in Andrew Haigh's romantic drama 45 Years about a couple whose marriage ends up in crisis as they prepare to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.

"I'm really pleased to get the bear because I've got a silver one and he was asking me the other day: 'Where's the gold one?' So I said: 'Well I'm going to be back soon with it,' "Rampling told a news conference in Berlin.

"They can box together. No, it's great, especially because it's with Dieter Kosslick, who I admire enormously and I've worked so much with him and so it's very moving."

Berlinale director Kosslick has called Rampling "an icon of unconventional and exciting cinema".