''In This World'' is a 2002 British

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film follows two young Afghan refugees, Jamal Udin Torabi and Enayatullah, as they leave a

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for in ...

in Pakistan for a better life in London. Since their journey is illegal, it is fraught with danger, and they must use back-channels, bribes, and smugglers to achieve their goal. The film won the Golden Bear prize at the 2003

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

and BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language at the 57th British Academy Film Awards the film was nominated for Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film but lost to '' Touching the Void'' (directed by Kevin Macdonald).

Plot

Jamal and Enayatullah are Afghan refugees in a camp in Peshawar, Pakistan. They travel to Quetta, and thence to Taftan on the Iranian border. They pay people smugglers to assist them over the border; on their first attempt they are stopped by Iranian police and returned to Pakistan, but their second attempt is successful. They travel to Tehran and then to Maku, in the Kurdish part of Iran, from where they cross a mountain range on foot to Turkey. In Istanbul they meet a group of other migrants, and they are taken to Italy inside a shipping container. The container is not ventilated, and most of the refugees, including Enayatullah, are suffocated to death. Jamal survives and lives in Italy for a time. He then steals a woman's purse and buys a rail ticket to Paris. From there, he goes to the

Sangatte Sangatte (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Pas-de-Calais Departments of France, department on the northern coast of France on the English Channel. The name is of Flemish origin, meaning hole or gap in the sand. Engineering Sangatte i ...

asylum seekers camp and with a new friend, Yusef, he crosses the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

by stowing away on a lorry. Finally, he arrives in London, where he calls his uncle to say he has arrived but that Enyatullah is "not in this world". The film ends with images of the Peshawar refugees.

Production and style

The film is shot in a

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

style but it is in fact a drama performed by non-professional actors and with improvised dialogue. The actors are mostly playing fictionalised versions of themselves; for example, Jamal is a real Afghan refugee and the Iranian policeman who deports the two refugees back to Pakistan is played by a real policeman who is re-enacting his normal work for the camera. Enayatullah was a market trader whom the filmmakers cast because they thought him "a nice guy". The production team lied to authorities in several countries in order to secure filming rights, having met government resistance in Iran and Pakistan. Most of the film was shot on location, but the scenes inside the Sangatte camp were actually filmed in England, as the film crew received hostility from the French inhabitants of the nearby village.Michael Winterbottom, "Behind the Scenes Footage with Commentary", on the Region 1 DVD.

Distribution

The film was released in the UK in March 2003 by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

after festival screenings in 2002. It was released in the United States in a limited number of cities in September 2003 by Lions Gate as part of the short-lived Sundance Film Series partnership experiment with Loews Cineplex Entertainment. The film did not make much money, but was highly regarded by the critics that were able to see it. The film holds an 89% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

Aftermath

In a case of life imitating art, after returning to Pakistan, Jamal Udin Torabi made the journey to London in reality and applied for asylum. He lived with a family in South East London, although he was only granted leave to remain in the UK until his eighteenth birthday. Enayatullah used the money he earned on the film to buy a truck, and now runs an import-export business between Kabul and Peshawar.

References

External links

*
In This World
' at

BBC Films BBC Film (formerly BBC Films) is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It was founded on 18 June 1990, and has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including ''Truly, Madly, Deeply (film), Truly, ...

* {{Navboxes , title = Awards for ''In This World'' , list = {{BAFTA Best Foreign Language Film {{Golden Bear 2000-2019 2002 films 2002 documentary films 2002 drama films Pashto-language films 2000s Persian-language films BAFTA winners (films) BBC Film films Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA Award winners British drama films British docudrama films Documentary films about refugees Films scored by Dario Marianelli Films about illegal immigration to Europe Afghan diaspora in Europe Films directed by Michael Winterbottom Films set in France Films set in Iran Films set in Italy Films set in London Films set in Pakistan Films set in Turkey Films shot in England Films with screenplays by Tony Grisoni Golden Bear winners 2000s British films Films about immigration to the United Kingdom