"Ploning", the independent movie starring Judy Ann Santos, continues to reap accolades after its director, Dante Nico Garcia, won an award in the annual Asian Festival of 1st Films Wednesday.

Garcia won the best director award in the annual film fest, which saw over 600 submissions from 26 countries.

"Firaaq," told through the eyes of ordinary people after deadly communal riots in India's Gujarat in 2002, won its director Nandita Das best film, best screenplay/script and the Foreign Correspondents Association award for best film.

Das, an actress known for her roles in bold, unconventional productions, said she took three years to write a script that was continually influenced by real life events, including bombings.

Various Indian and Pakistani films were nominated for awards at the festival, but other honors went to Bosco Francis (best male actor) for Singapore's "My Magic" and China's Jia Xuhua as best actress in "The Mountain and the Song."

Female leads were nominated for their portrayals of suffering Asian women, from transvestites in Iran's "Khastegi" (Sex My Life) to a sexual predator wearing painfully tight outfits in South Korea's "Miss Gold Digger." With Reuters