TEHRAN -- Iranian director Jafar Panahi and Danish filmmaker Pernille Fischer Christensen jointly won the Silver Bear award of the 56th International Berlin Film Festival during the closing ceremony of the event on Saturday evening.

Panahi won the award for “Offside”, which is about six Iranian girls who disguise themselves as boys in order to enter Tehran’s Azadi Stadium to watch the 2006 World Cup Asian zone qualifier between Iran and Bahrain but who are arrested one by one.

This is the second time the film has been screened at an international event. People warmly welcomed Panahi’s latest film in its debut at the Fajr film festival in Tehran last month. The director hopes that he can obtain a screening license for the Iranian premiere a month before the 2006 World Cup.

The jury of the Berlinale film gala also honored first-time Danish director Fischer Christensen for her “En Soap”' (“A Soap”).

Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic’s “Grbavica”, a moving drama about Bosnia's post-war trauma, won the Berlinale’s top prize, the Golden Bear.