The Foreign Correspondents Association awarded the FCA Purple Orchid Award for Best First Film as part of the Asian Festival of 1st Films between 2006 and 2009. The festival has now moved to India.

The trophy, a beautiful purple crystal orchid, is awarded by a jury made up of FCA journalists along with working foreign journalists covering the festival.

Purple Orchid Award Winners

• 2009- Land, Gold, Women by Avantika Hari (UK/India)

  Set in Birmingham, the story highlights the problems of forced marriage and honour crime, which affect thousands of women in Britain and across the world.

• 2008 - Firaaq by Nandita Das (India)

  Set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat in India, the story of Firaaq looks at the aftermath effects of the brutal event on the lives of everyday people.

• 2007 - Kabul Express by Kabir Khan (India)

  Two television reporters risk their lives to enter Afghanistan and film a documentary on a Taliban soldier.

• 2006 - The Road by Zhang Jiarui (China)

  A doom fated love story between a ticket girl on a rural bus line and a doctor from Shanghai

The annual prize was first established in 2006 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the FCA Singapore and ran until 2011, when it was discountinued.

It was named after the late Dennis Bloodworth, who for many years was the Chief Far East correspondent for the UK's Observer newspaper and was also a founding father of FCA Singapore.

The inaugural multimedia journalism competition was launched in 2009 to honour excellence in multimedia journalism and digital storytelling and ran for two years. It was discontinued in 2011.

Previous Winners

• 2010 - FCA Multimedia Journalism winners:

  Ng Jia Rui Natalie, Hong Huazheng, Ong Jun Wei Reuben. Watch Now!

• 2009 - FCA Multimedia Journalism winners:

  Sam Kang Li, Justin Zhuang Yukang and Serena Cheong.