Abu Shahed Emon's critically-acclaimed feature film "Jalaler Golpo" (The Story of Jalal) today won the award for the best work by a debutant director at the 20th International Film Festival of Kerala in India.

Emon was conferred the "Rajata Chakoram" (Silver Crow Pheasant), a citation and Indian Rupees 3 lakh as part of the award at a function on the concluding day of the festival in Thiruvananthapuram, capital of southern Indian state of Kerala, this evening.

Emon's film was selected for the award by a four-member international jury headed by acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Julio Bressane.

The other members of the jury include celebrated Indian director Jhanu Barua, Nadia Dresti, the Head of Internation of the Locarno Film Festival and member of Switzerland's Federal Commission for Cinema, and Maxine Williamson, the film director of Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival.

The top award (Golden Crow Pheasant) at the Kerala International Film Festival went to Malayalam feature film "Ottal" (The Trap) by India's national award-winning director Jayaraj.

Fourteen films representing 11 countries, including four from India, were in the race for the top honours in different categories including the best debut director.             

The Indian entries in the competition section were Hindi film 'The Violin Player' by Bauddhayan Mukherjee, Bengali film 'No Woman's Land' (Rajkahini) by Srijit Mukherji, and Malayalam film 'The Painted House' (Chaayam Poosiya Veedu) by Thiruvananthapuram-based brothers Satish and Santosh Babusenanan.

With today's award at the Kerala state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, "Jalaler Golpo" achieved a hat-trick, having earlier won the award for best debutant director's film at the Jaipur International Film Festival in India in February and the best feature film in Avanca International Film Festival in Portugal in July this year.

"It's an incredible feeling. Today's award will give immense inspiration to do even better film in future. This is a great boost for meaningful cinema in Bangladesh where Bangladeshi directors would like to tell stories of Bangladesh," Emon told The Daily Star over phone soon after receiving the award.

"Jalaler Golpo" has in its cast Mosharraf Karim, who had won the best actor's award in Portugal, Moushumi Hamid, Arafat Rahman, Md Emon and Fazlul Haque.