Peter Greenaway has been awarded the outstanding contribution award at the Baftas, for a body of work that includes 8½ Women, The Draughtsman's Contract, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.

Juliet Stevenson presented the award to the director, remembering that for his film Drowning by Numbers she swam in freezing water, did "surprising things with an ice lolly" and "had to push a large naked woman in a wheelbarrow up a slippery slope in five-inch heels."

Calling him "visionary and inspirational", Stevenson championed Greenaway's rejection of the orthodoxy and his respect for actors, describing the "beauty and invention" in every shot. Alluding to the director's early desire to be a painter, she said that the "art world's loss is our great and lasting gain. None of [his films] come easily to the watcher, but once watched, they remain with you always".

In receiving the award, Greenaway said: "I'd like to imagine it was an acknowledgement of contemporary changing cinema", adding he championed the "continual reinvention" of the form.

• Xan Brooks is live-blogging the ceremony here

• Greenaway interviewed in 2012 and 2010.