It's not often you hear London's Kilburn High Road spoken of in reverential awe as an object of desire.

However, if you're a 12-year-old Afghan refugee eking out a miserable living in a squalid Pakistani refugee camp, the pavements of north London might as well be paved with gold.

Jamal, by virtue of his spoken English, is chosen to join his cousin Enayat for the long trip overland through Iran, Turkey and Europe to this economic Mecca in reverse.

Greasing the various grasping palms of 'people smugglers', the pair head off on their hazardous trek riding the backs of flatbed trucks and articulated lorries.

As well as the sheer arduous nature of the journey, they are in constant danger of being discovered by the authorities and sent back to Pakistan.

Using digital video, Winterbottom superbly conveys the combination of fear, hope and sheer discomfort experienced by the refugees.

While drawing on documentary conventions, he injects just enough drama to sustain the narrative without things getting too dry and impersonal.

One particularly memorable scene sees then dodging border patrols as they struggle over the snow-covered mountains from Iran into Turkey.

As literal outlaws they are vulnerable to the duplicity of mercenary go-betweens, and their passage in a freight container from Istanbul to Trieste ends in tragedy.

In a time when asylum-seekers are demonised as leeching criminals, this a timely reminder of the living, breathing people behind the statistics.

There's precious little time for characterisation but we gradually build up a fond picture of Jamal as a font of weakly funny anecdotes and hardy resourcefulness.

Almost a prequel to Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, it's ultimately a moving story of sheer desperation to lead a better life.

And the ultimate irony is the character of Jamal is acted out by the real person...and he faces deportation the day before his 18th birthday.

Tim Evans