After winning several titles at international film festivals, the Chinese film "I Am Not Madam Bovary" has now received a new, somewhat less conventional prize. The film was given the Dirty Ashtray Award for its frequent depiction of smoking, which China is currently trying to curb.

At an annual conference where popular domestic films and TV shows are monitored, the film, starring Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, received the notorious Dirty Ashtray Award for 2016, together with TV series "Rookie Agent Rouge."

Previously, Fan received Best Actress awards at the San Sebastian Film Festival and the 11th Asian Film Festival. However, the 138-minute film also distinguished itself by including 16 shots and 287 seconds of on-screen smoking, accounting for some 3.5 percent of the film. The longest shot lasts a full 70 seconds. The TV series that took home the dubious honor features 1,464 seconds of smoking, or 1.2 percent of the total series.

The monitoring began in 1993, carried out by the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control (CATC). It became an annual activity in 2007, with films and TV shows that include zero smoking scenes being given a No Smoking Award.

In 2009 and 2011, the state media watchdog repeatedly issued regulations to control on-screen smoking. In 2016, the number of films and TV series with smoking scenes had decreased by 34.6 percent and 45 percent respectively since 2015, China News Service reported.