MUMBAI: Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand has been honoured with the visionary talent award at the Venice Film Festival, ahead of the premier of her new HBO mini-series, Olive Kitteridge which she called the culmination of her life's work.

McDormand, who is married to director Joel Coen and has starred in several Coen brothers films including Fargo and Burn After Reading, was presented with the Visionary Talent Award for a career that began on Broadway in 1984.

Talking about her new project, McDormand said that she was gratified to be at a film festival with Olive Kitteridge.

In Olive Kitteridge, McDormand plays a witty, acerbic maths teacher in a New England town in a story that spans 25 years, based on a Pulitzer prize-winning collection of short stories by Elizabeth Strout, and directed by Lisa Cholodenko. It is set to air in the US in November.

The actress made her feature film debut 30 years ago in Coen's Blood Simple. Talking about working in television she said, “Television has allowed all of us to reinvent on our own terms what we want our professional lives to be. For a female elder, action roles in films are limited, but television opens up new possibilities."

McDormand won the Best Actress Oscar for Fargo and has also been nominated three more times for Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005).