WINNING Best Actress for the local movie Dance Of The Dragon at the inaugural West Hollywood International Film Festival (WHIFF) is not always a good thing.

Singaporeans raised doubts about the festival's credibility days after news broke of Caldecott darling Fann Wong's win in August.

Joshua Wong wrote on the TNP Postwoman website: 'Do we even know what WHIFF is? I obviously don't.

'WHIFF brings to mind those dubious reviews and quotes on B-grade movie ads, such as '5 stars! - a movie critic'.'

The 37-year-old actress had a flu when we contacted her.

She said: 'It would have been great if I was there to receive (the award) personally...'

She joked: 'And I'm disappointed that I'm celebrating in bed with dosages of medicine instead of champagne, haha.'

The film swept 10 awards including Best Festival Movie and Best Actor.

Too bad Fann got no love locally.

The movie, which was directed by Australian John Radel, opened here on 1 May and bombed at the box office, raking in a meagre $170,000 despite an aggressive publicity campaign.

But all is not lost. She another chance to prove herself in her upcoming movie, The Wedding Game, in which she stars opposite her fiance, actor Christopher Lee.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Dec 30, 2008.