Take Off is a 2016 Iranian sports comedy-drama from director Ehsan Abdipour, built around the mismatched energy of a small-stakes team chasing a big goal.
What is Take Off about?
Set against the backdrop of amateur competition, the film follows a group thrown together more by circumstance than by talent, with the gap between ambition and ability supplying most of the comedy. Pegah Ahangarani and Mostafa Zamani anchor the ensemble as figures pulled in different directions by the same cause, while Sogol Ghalatian rounds out a cast that leans on quick exchanges and situational mishaps rather than a single dramatic turn. The sports setting gives the story its shape: qualifying rounds, locker-room politics, and the pressure of a deadline all push the group toward a shared reckoning. Rather than building toward one clean triumph, the film keeps circling back to the friction inside the team itself, letting comedy and drama trade places scene to scene.
About the cast
Pegah Ahangarani and Mostafa Zamani carry the film's tonal shifts, moving between comic timing and quieter dramatic beats without the story leaning too hard on either register. Sogol Ghalatian fills out the ensemble, giving the group scenes a texture that a two-hander would not manage on its own.
Context & significance
Take Off arrived in 2016 as part of a run of Iranian comedies built around amateur sport, a genre that lets filmmakers stage social friction — class, ambition, gender expectation — inside something as ordinary as a team trying to qualify for a tournament. At 137 minutes, the film gives itself room to let subplots breathe rather than rushing to a single finish line, which is part of why the ensemble, not one lead performance, carries most of the weight.
Watching Take Off on Ktime
Take Off streams on K-Time with a free account login — no separate purchase required beyond a paid subscription, and no trial to track. The platform is built around Persian-language film and television for the diaspora, with a Farsi-first interface alongside the English one, so viewers can move between the two without losing their place.