Twelve years in the Malayalam industry as an editor and with several films to his credit including Traffic, How Old Are You? and Ennum Ninte Moideen, Mahesh Narayan has been waiting to direct his own film.
With Take Off, a Malayalam rescue drama set in Iraq, Narayan fulfils his dreams and his directorial innings has certainly taken off with a bang.
The cherry on the cake being the fantastic response to this human drama brought alive by the wonderful performances of Parvathy, Kunchako Boban, Fahad Faasil and new comers.
tabloid! caught up with Narayan who is presently editing Tamil film, Vishwaroopam 2.
‘Take Off’ is a fictionalised story of Indian nurses held captive in Tikrit, Iraq by [Daesh] militants,” said Narayan who wrote the story along with Malayalam writer P.V. Shaji Kumar.
The story was inspired by a real incident that occurred in 2014 when nurses from Kerala were held captive by terrorists in Iraq.
“A lot of research went into the writing and we took events from other incidents that happened recently to work on the different characters,” he said.
The nurses’ harrowing tale is told through the fictionalised life of one, Sameera.
Parvathy plays Sameera. Kunchako Boban plays her husband, Shaheed. The supporting cast includes Fahad Faasil, Asif Ali, Eric Anil, Prem Prakash and Prakash Belawadi.
Take Off was shot in Kerala, Hyderabad and Ras Al Khaimah.
Gopi Sundar and Shaan Rahman have scored music. Sanu John Verghese is the DOP.
Take Off, produced by Anto Joseph and Rajesh Pillai Films, releases in the UAE on April 6.
