The film won the Golden Bear prize at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival 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 The Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald ) . 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 asylum seekers camp and with a new friend , Yusef , he crosses the English Channel 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
57th British Academy Film Awards
57th British Academy Film Awards
In This World