Thursday 30 June 2016
Michael Winterbottom | UK, 2002 | 88 mins | Rated 15
Screening as part of Haringey Independent Cinema’s 10 year anniversary, In This World follows the perilous journey of two Afghan teenagers as they make their way to Europe in search of a better life.
This intimate yet hard-hitting film follows two Afghan teenagers as they escape from a refugee camp in Pakistan, along the smugglers’ route known as The Silk Road.
Travelling through Iran, Turkey, Italy, and France, Jamal and and his cousin Enayatullah embark on a desperate journey to freedom. Short on money, lacking proper papers, and forced to travel in trucks and shipping containers, the boys find themselves at the mercy of the people-smugglers who make their living out of others’ misery.
Shot on digital video, In This World is styled as a fictional documentary, using voiceover narration and real refugees and locations (including the infamous Sangatte camp). The mainly improvised script creates a powerful piece of guerrilla filmmaking.
With a striking sense of the psychological effects of displacement and loss that these boys suffer, In This World challenges knee-jerk reactions to the asylum debate by questioning the neat distinctions between economic migrants and political refugees.