An Iranian comedy about female football fans? An Iranian Bend It Like Beckham? It sounds pretty unlikely. (I can't really imagine Iranian arthouse master Abbas Kiarostami directing Juliet Stevenson doing her "There's-a-reason-Sporty-Spice-doesn't-have-a-boyfriend" speech, unless perhaps she were to do it unsmilingly and at a fraction of the normal speed, with the camera trained enigmatically on her deadpan face while someone else replies.) A football comedy is none the less what Iranian director Jafar Panahi has created with this likeable, gentle and charming film about young women football fanatics, disguised as boys, doing their darnedest to defy the all-male rule and get in to see the Iran v Bahrain qualifying international for the 2006 World Cup.

With audacity and flair, Panahi filmed it at the actual stadium, at the actual match, and appeared to have two improvised outcomes broadly in mind in case of victory or defeat - though Iran did in fact qualify.
Comedian Omid Djalili had a routine about the reaction of the British Iranian community's reaction to Iran's sensational 2-1 victory over the United States in the 1998 World Cup final. Well-heeled professionals and store-owners poured out on to the Edgware Road in west London, got in their cars and drove slightly faster and more happily than usual up and down, honking discreetly, waving flags modestly, smiling benignly: the best-behaved victory celebration in the history of football. The match ignited an enormous groundswell of interest in football in Iran, and played its part in a vibrant youth culture in which Iran's young women saw a chance to play their part. The match was also notable, as it happens, for the spirit of sportsmanship in which it was played, with an exchange of flowers and gifts with the American team before kick-off - although it has to be said the final result did not further football's global advance into the US, and the idea of a good-humoured sporting contest between these two countries now seems very remote.

At any rate, football in Iran is now very big and Offside genially taps into this mood. We see a girl wearing nondescript, floppy sports gear, with the national colours painted on her face, sitting on a coach with a rowdy bunch of lads, desperately hoping not to get caught. Her father, utterly distraught, is out looking for her. One boy spots her disguise and wishes her good luck - but she is in no mood to be patronised. Shrugging off his condescending good wishes, she joins the crowds outside the stadium, buys a ticket from a tout, only to be caught by the police and led away to a special holding pen of women football fans. They must then go through agonies of listening to the roar of the crowd and trying to work out what is happening from the uneducated commentaries of the national service boys in uniform who have them under lock and key.

Panahi gently establishes the keynote of knowing yet unworldly humour by having one of his resentful, miserable squaddies borrow the captured woman's mobile phone to call his wife - and then suffer torments when she calls him back on that number and demands to know why a woman's voice has answered the phone. His superior officer has the world on his shoulders in having to keep this bunch of uproarious women in line, whingeingly pointing out that he is at heart a country boy, who desires nothing more than to be relieved of his military duties and return to his farm to look after his cattle. But this looks almost impossible when one of his junior officers has to escort one of the women to use the men's lavatory and she escapes. With six captured women reported, and only five likely to be present and correct when he has to hand them over, it looks very much as if he will be punished by being kept in the army forever - and he can say farewell to his rural paradise.

This is one of those very rare films that, with no very obvious and coercive narrative structure, simply goes with its own self-created flow, and never looks pointless or directionless. In recent years, I have fallen out of love with the obscurantist, miserablist tendency in Iranian cinema: the low point coming with Babak Payami's ineffably gloomy Silence Between Two Thoughts (2004). Yet other movies have shown an energy and freshness. One such is Kamal Tabrizi's comedy The Lizard (2005), and this is another such: approachable, accessible, yet with the delicacy and subtlety that characterises the best of Iranian movie-making. I liked it a lot better than Panahi's crime drama Crimson Gold (2003) and rank it as equal, in its unassuming way, to his excoriating drama The Circle (2001). It is a quietly intelligent and humorous alternative look at football, pop culture and the position of women.

OpenDemocracy: How did you go about making the film inside Iran? An article in Time says you submitted a phoney synopsis to the authorities who later found out they were duped. I felt as I was watching the film that something awful was going to happen (I was at points reminded of Siddiq Barmak's Osama). Did you and your crew feel that too when you were working? Did you expect the police to pounce at any minute?

Jafar Panahi: Many things in Iran always have certain problems. For each film that we make we have to think of creative ways of doing it. In Farsi we have a saying: "if you can't get through the door then climb up through the window." So this is what we have to do to find a way of achieving our aims. For each film this method can only be used once, and for the next one obviously we have to find an alternative way of doing it.

We gave a script to the authorities and it was slightly different - we said that it was just about some boys who go to a football match. Once they approved that film, we went about making this film. We didn't have any problems with the police but the Ministry of Guidance - the organisation which approves film releases - told us that it would not give us a license because it was not happy with my previous films. It said that I must amend them according to its wishes, and only then would it give me a license to release this film - and it said that this would take at least a year. Well, time was passing and I wanted to have the film out before the World Cup, so we just went ahead and produced the film.

openDemocracy: Are men in Iran generally sympathetic to the women's interest in attending matches or do they mostly feel that stadiums are a masculine preserve?

Jafar Panahi: Before the revolution women were allowed to attend football matches, the same as men, and the current restrictions came only after the revolution in 1979. Because of this kind of ideology, the mentality of the people has changed, and so it is this "official" mentality which is causing all the problems. But in my opinion, the majority of men do not have a problem with women attending matches. But since women were banned from attending, the whole atmosphere of the matches become very male and chauvinistic and rude, and it has by now developed its own momentum.

openDemocracy: How often do girls and women actually get into legal trouble for sneaking into matches, as opposed to being turned away and sent home?

Jafar Panahi: The same thing happens to women who don't observe the hijab properly, it is what you call "bad hijab" when they show some of their hair. The vice squad are sent to deal with them. The women are fined, or they are sometimes detained and imprisoned, or their families are sent for and they have to guarantee that they will not behave like this again. So this is how it is done. But again, it is all about the way that the authorities interpret the laws.

openDemocracy: Can you expand on the idea of the murkiness of the women and football issue: what's really banned, who does the banning? And can you comment on the interpretation of the law on various levels - civil and religious authorities, soldiers / police?

Jafar Panahi: Of course when you try to restrict something or implement a restriction it has to be based on some sort of law. But there is nothing in the law which has been approved by the Iranian parliament or anybody else which bans women from taking part. It has become a kind of unwritten law. The policemen and the soldiers too, have to follow this unwritten law and unwritten rules, and they are answerable to their superiors for it.

openDemocracy: Stylistically, the film is very much like a documentary. You use non-professional actors and events unfold in real time - there is even a half-time toilet break!

Jafar Panahi: Yes, all the actors are non-professionals. The film is constructed like a documentary in which I have inserted fictional characters. Are we in a documentary, or is this fiction? I wanted the action to reflect this ambiguity. We tried to preserve a unity of time, so with each second that passes, I want the audience to feel that they are watching a real event unfold. The places are real, the event is real, and so are the characters and the extras. This is why I purposefully chose not to use professional actors, as their presence would have introduced a notion of falseness.

openDemocracy: Where did you find the actors? Were the girls in reality football fans who were sympathetic to the storyline?

Jafar Panahi: When I write a script I look around for people who can do the job best. For example, the soldier I found in Tabriz, in the north-west of Iran. For the girls, they were mainly university students - and I found them through friends and colleagues and my contacts at universities. As far as their interest in football, yes, they are genuinely interested and passionate about football. They wanted to go to the matches.

Fortunately in Iran the actors or actresses do not get into trouble. The main problem is for the producers and directors. Of course I've got into trouble in the past so I don't mind so much - and I'm used to it, but as far as the actors are concerned there was no danger to them.

openDemocracy: The film is very funny, and at times almost farcical. How important is humour to you in telling the story?

Jafar Panahi: I believe that it is the greatest insult to women that they have to deny their identity as women and have to dress as men to take part in society. So yes, there is humour, but it is bitter humour. You may laugh at it, but nevertheless you feel very sad that women have to deny their femininity to take part in a function where men can take part.

In the film I have deliberately included a female character who wears the chador. By that I want to show that it is not only people who are not religious and outside this group that have problems, but that even a religious person - who is prepared to wear the hijab - is restricted and not allowed to take part. The authorities are being unfair to the religious people as well as the non-religious people - both simply want to watch a game, or take part in male functions, and both are being marginalised and deprived.
Restrictions are imposed throughout different strata and classes of people. My aim in bringing together people from different classes and religious backgrounds is to show that everybody is subject to these sorts of restrictions and laws.

The reason given by people who say women should not go to these matches is the rowdy language, the curses and the swearing; they feel that ladies should not be exposed to that behaviour. But another point made by the ulema recently (in connection with the latest rulings) is that it is not correct for women to go there and see men with bare arms and legs. So even if they don't derive any enjoyment from it the very fact of seeing men in that position is considered to be bad. This adds a further argument for exclusion of women.

We are not trying to fight against anybody or challenge anybody with our films. All we want to do is raise a social issue. We want to tell those in government that there is this problem so at least they can think more deeply about it. We want to persuade them that there are more rational ways of tackling and dealing with these problems than sheer restriction or ignoring them.

openDemocracy: Patriotism, duty and honour are major themes and it was interesting that you explored this through the younger generation.

Jafar Panahi: This is a good question and an important point. When you are talking about nationalism and patriotism we have to realise that this is not about chauvinism or the superiority of once race or country. Ever since the revolutionary regime came to power it has fought against some inherited national traditions like nowruz (new year festival).

People in Iran want to return to their national identity. They want to say that they have a long history and that there are many points of pride in that long history. They want to reclaim their traditions and to say that we are a cultured people, and we can live together under those shared cultural values.