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Iranian director wins Freedom to Create prize

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The Freedom to Create Prize has been awarded to the Iranian film director who created the 2001 film Kandahar.Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a prominent international advocate of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, was awarded the prize in London on Wednesday.Makhmalbaf wins a $50,000 US cash award, which he says he will use to highlight injustices in Iran.To film Kandahar he travelled secretly in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule to capture the effects of the oppressive regime. Many of his earlier films are banned in Iran.He said he has had to make films about his native country from the outside, filming in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and India, because if he returned he would go directly to prison.Makhmalbaf, 52, is head of the Asian Film Academy and more recently created Colder than Fire and Poet of Wastes.He has dedicated his award to leading cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri and his popular opposition movement.Montazeri, who spent five years under house arrest, is one of the current government's harshest critics. He has denounced the June presidential election that led to widespread protests and arrests of opposition supporters. Winners from Burma, AfghanistanThe second place prize, and $15,000 US, went to women from Myanmar's minority Shan people, the Kumjing Storytellers, who ...