Acclaimed director Morshedul Islam's film “Chaka” has received a rare honour, but the consequences have also brought a conundrum to the director.

The 1993 film has been sought by French Video-on-Demand (VOD) service La Cinetek for their catalogue, after it was named in the list of favorite movies by Cannes Palme d'Or-winning Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The service seeks a list every month from a noted filmmaker of their favorite films of the 20th century that then becomes available on their VOD server. However, the original negative of the film that was in a film lab in Mumbai, are untraceable.

“The post-production of 'Chaka' was done in Mumbai, and the negative was there,” Morshedul Islam tells The Daily Star. “After La Cinetek sought the film, I contacted them and found out that the lab closed down a few years ago which they had not informed me of.”

 “I have a print of the film in 16mm, but I cannot get a good digital print from that. I plan to go to Mumbai to trace the negative, and I am looking at other places as well,” the national award-winning director adds. “The Bangladesh Film archive might also have a duplicate, but I don't know that for sure. The film had also released in France so I spoke to those distributors as well. But the print they have is not in good conditions after many screenings, and it's also a very old print. There should also be a print of 'Chaka' at the Fukuoka Film Archive in Japan, so I am also trying to get in touch with them,” Islam says.

 “It is a great honour for a Bangaldeshi film to be nominated by such an eminent director as one of his favourite films,” says Morshedul Islam, but admits that he has no acquaintance to Weerasethakul and the news was a surprise to him as well.

 “Next year marks the 25th anniversary of 'Chaka', so I was actually also planning on re-mastering it on the occasion, but it all depends on whether I can find the negative,” says a dejected Morshedul Islam.

 “Chaka”, based on Selim Al Deen's story of the same name, cast Ashish Khandakar, Amirul Haque Chowdhury, Abul Khayer and Dilara Zaman in the central roles, and received international acclaim. The film won best director and best film at the 1994 Dunkirk International Film Festival (France), won the FIPRESCI and honourable mention of the InterFilm Jury Award at the 1993 Mannheim Film Festival (Germany), and was screened at the 1994 International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands).

The film depicts the landscape and life of Rural Bangladesh with great sensitivity, and revolves around the driver of an ox cart and his companion, who are intimidated into delivering a dead body to a village. When they reach the village, no one claims the corpse. The two resume their journey to another village hoping to find claimants, to no avail. The duo then take initiatives to bury the body themselves.