Iranian filmmaker collects prize
Updated on 25 November 2009
Channel 4 News meets exiled Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf who is now a spokesman for the opposition in the country of his birth.
He is best known for his award-winning film Kandahar, a bleak take on life under the Taliban in Afghanistan.
He is a fierce critic of the regime in charge in Tehran and he was in London to collect the "freedom to create prize", which honours individuals or groups who promote social justice.
He has dedicated the award to Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, an Iranian spiritual leader and another outspoken critic of the current regime.
The $50,000 prize has been donated to the green movement, the opposition in Iran.
Makhmalbaf himself left Iran five years ago and since the election in June this year, he has become ever more vocal in his criticism of the Ahmadinejad regime.
As a young man, he was jailed under the Shah. His wife and two daughters are also film directors - the whole family now lives in exile.
