Take Off 2017

Sameera, Parvathy Thiruvothu, is a nurse in Kerala who dreams of moving to Iraq for a higher salary. Her husband, Faizal, Asif Ali, and their family are not supportive, burdened by loans taken to fund her nursing education and the debts they struggle to repay. The pressure escalates until the couple decides to part ways, leaving their young son Ibrahim in Faizal’s care. Shaheed, a considerate colleague, understands Sameera’s hardships and wishes to marry her. Though she hesitates at the thought of a new marriage, they ultimately wed before sailing to Iraq. They travel with a group of nineteen nurses from their hospital to join Tikrit Teaching College, a government hospital in Iraq, hoping for a better future.

In Iraq, the reality on the ground shatters the peaceful portrait they carried from interviews. The country is far from calm, with daily conflicts and rising casualties pressing the medical staff beyond their limits. Sameera’s fluency in Arabic becomes a lifeline, enabling her to communicate effectively with local doctors and to rally the group through the chaotic days ahead. As the team grapples with overcrowded wards and the weight of their duties, Sameera discovers she is pregnant, a secret she fights to keep from Ibrahim, who is set to visit on vacation. Complicating matters, Faizal travels to Iraq to hand over Ibrahim to Sameera, amid mounting family tensions. Ibrahim struggles to accept Shaheed as his new stepfather, and when he learns his mother has remarried, he runs out into a city consumed by violence and protests.

Shaheed offers practical support, suggesting that he accompany the army medical team to Mosul to tend to the wounded. He reassures Sameera that the assignment will be over in two weeks and that her son will adjust. But violence accelerates: Mosul falls under ISIS control, and the hospital becomes a captive site for militants. Sameera pleads with hospital management for help, and the Indian Embassy in Baghdad becomes the lifeline that could change everything. The embassy promises support but warns of the limits of intervention in a war zone, a reality that weighs heavily on everyone involved.

Back in Tikrit, the situation deteriorates as ISIS closes in further. A hospital manager is killed, and Sameera finds herself coordinating with the Indian Embassy as the crisis expands. With no direct leverage against ISIS, India vacillates between diplomacy and practical rescue options. A Red Cross and Red Crescent convoy is proposed to extract the nurses, but the plan collapses when safety cannot be guaranteed through the war-treaked corridors toward Mosul. In the end, the bus designed to evacuate the stranded nurses is stopped, and the majority are left behind while ISIS uses those remaining as human shields. The Indian crisis unit pivots to a covert approach, with a satellite phone hidden inside a packet delivering the critical location data to the Crisis Command Center in the Embassy.

Ambassador Manoj, Fahadh Faasil, is drawn into an intense negotiation, while Kerala’s authorities and NORKA, led by Jayamohan, a prominent Malayalee businessman, mobilize behind the scenes. Jayamohan, a trusted broker with ties to a Saudi royal member, agrees to unofficially mediate with ISIS on India’s behalf. After a prolonged discussion, a secret deal is brokered that seeks to secure the nurses’ safety without a formal, traceable agreement. Meanwhile, Sameera uses her linguistic skills and the shared religious practices of the nurses—along with the calm presence of Shaheed and the other captives—to demonstrate their unity and to persuade their captors that they are all Muslims, thereby avoiding targeted harm.

The turning point comes when Sameera, through relentless persistence, identifies Shaheed among ISIS captives who are about to be executed. Her plea leads to his rescue and the group’s eventual movement from Mosul toward Erbil, near the Kurdistan checkpoint. India steps in to arrange transport, and a special flight is organized to bring the group home to Kochi from Erbil. The film closes with the emotional return of the nurses and their firsthand recounting of their experiences under ISIS’s grip, followed by a final, somber volley of footage. In a closing twist, Jayamohan destroys the documents revealing the unofficial deal, with a voiceover explaining that the details must remain classified to protect national security.

The story remains a stark, human-focused chronicle of courage and resilience: a group of nurses from Kerala who faced extraordinary peril, navigated impossible choices, and found a path back home through a delicate blend of bravery, diplomacy, and quiet solidarity.