Morshedul Islam, second from left at the front row, at the award giving ceremony in Sri-Lanka.

Eminent film director Morshedul Islam received the best director award for his Independence War based film ‘Khelaghar’ at the SAARC Film Festival-2012 in Sri-Lanka.
Sri-Lankan Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs WDJ Seneviratne conferred the award to Morshedul Islam at the concluding ceremony of the festival held at National Film Corporation Cinema Hall in Colombo on Sunday.
‘It always feels great to receive an award’, Morshed told New Age in his first interview after winning the award. ‘I’m more excited in this sense that I got the award for a movie made in 2006’.
Organised by SAARC Cultural Centre, the five-day festival, which began on My 16, featured ten feature films and nine documentaries from five member countries of SAARC India, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, Pakistan and Maldives.
Sri Lankan film Akasa Kusum directed by Prasanna Vithanage won the best movie award. Pakistani film ‘Ramchandra Pakistani’ and Indian film ‘Biyari respectively’ bagged the first and second runner up trophies at the festival. 
Pakistani film ‘Saving Face’ won the best documentary award while Sri-Lankan ‘The Great School’ won the first runner up trophy in the documentary category.
Well known filmmakers including Sri-Lankan film director Philip Chiahoo, Iranian director Mohammad Reza Arab and Russian director Mary Nazari were the judges at the festival.
The festival also included a workshop.
The story of the film Khelaghar depicts the struggle of common people during the dreadful days of the Independence War of Bangladesh.    
On his current business Morshedul Islam said, ‘I am working on the script for my next movie , which will be released soon. And it will be completely different one from my previous works.’
Morshedul Islam emerged as a film director in 1984 with the short film ‘Agami’. ‘Nouka O Jibon’, ‘Shuchona’, ‘Chaka’, ‘Dipu Number Two’, ‘Dukai’, ‘Brishty’, ‘Shorot 71’, ‘Durotto’, ‘Khelaghor’ are some of the famous films made by him. He and his films took part in more than 40 international film festivals in different countries of Asia, Europe and America