Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, shown with student protesters in June, has won the Freedom to Create Prize. (Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters)

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, Afghanistan

The second place prize, and $15,000 US, went to women from Myanmar's minority Shan people, the Kumjing Storytellers, who use dolls to tell the story of how they were forced to flee their homes by the military regime.

The third prize of $10,000 was awarded to female Afghan artist Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai, whose work highlights the oppression of women in Afghanistan.

The Freedom to Create Prize celebrates the power of art to fight oppression and is awarded by London-based ArtAction.

The cash awards are equally divided between the winner and an organization of their choice.