In This World

Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient In This World follows young Afghan Jamal (impressive newcomer Jamal Udin Torabi) and his older cousin Enayat (Enayatullah) as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel onto Paris, the Sangatte refugee centre and ultimately asylum in London. Re-affirming his status as one of Britain's most accomplished and diverse film-making talents, Winterbottom (Welcome To Sarajevo, Wonderland, 24-Hour Party People) and his hugely gifted writer Tony Grisoni have struck a poignant, searing and remarkable balance between the fictional and documentary elements of the narrative to perceptively and indeed objectively examine the plight of Jamal and the countless thousands like him. Digitally shot to fully explore and incorporate the full possibilities of the medium, the timely In This World is an exciting, at times harrowing and undeniably remarkable achievement that deservedly brought it's maker the coveted Golden Bear Award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival.