Beirut: Lebanon has banned the film "Persepolis", which has annoyed authorities in Iran for its critical portrayal of the Islamic revolution, a Lebanese interior ministry source said Wednesday.

The source did not give a specific reason why the film was banned in Lebanon, while it has been screened in Iran.

Another interior ministry source close to the anti-Syrian majority said the ban was because the head of the Lebanese General Security, Wafik Jezzini, is close to the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah and "he did not wish to anger them".

The film, which graphically shows its young heroine's brushes with the authorities in the early days of the Islamic revolution in the 1980s, was screened in Iran last month.

Despite the film's success in the US and France, "Persepolis" has been condemned by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government as "Islamophobic" and "anti-Iranian".

"Persepolis," which jointly won the Jury Prize at Cannes and had been nominated for an Oscar for best animated film, is based on comic strips by Iranian-French Marjane Satrapi.