'I hope that we can be a bridge to open a dialogue between the two countries", Bening, wearing a black traditional hejab and headscarf, told reporters.

She is part of a team of film-makers and actors from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the organisation which stages the annual Oscars, that is currently on a week-long visit to the Islamic republic.

The delegation is on a private initiative to stage workshops with their Iranian counterparts, a rarity in a country where the authorities brand the United States the 'Great Satan.' After her brief statement, Bening and the other team members began a three-day workshop at Tehran's museum of cinema, an AFP photographer said.

The film star's remarks come a day after an aide to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged the Hollywood team to apologise for 'insults and slanders' dealt to Iranians in American movies.

Iranian cinema 'officials will only have the right to have official sessions with... Hollywood movie makers when they apologise to the Iranians for their 30 years of insults and slanders,' Javad Shamaghdari said on Saturday.

'The Iranian people and our revolution has been repeatedly unjustly attacked by Hollywood,' he said, citing '300' and recent Oscar-nominated movie 'The Wrestler' as among the offending films.

In 2007, the Spartan war epic '300,' a smash hit in the United States for its gory portrayal of the Greco-Persian wars, drew the wrath of Iranians for depicting their ancestors as bloodthirsty.

Similarly 'The Wrestler' was booed in Iran and heavily criticised over a scene in which an Iranian flag was torn by the picture's star, 2009 Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke. -- AFP