Aadujeevitham (Goat Life), adapted from the bestselling 2008 Malayalam book, stars Prithviraj Sukumaran as Najeeb, an Indian immigrant in Saudi Arabia who is kidnapped and forced into slave-like labour as a goat herder in the desert. The story is inspired by the real-life ordeal of a man with the same name, who was abducted in the country in the 1990s and managed to escape after two years.

Aadujeevitham shows Najeeb isolated from the world, alone with his master and his animals, facing extreme heat in a harsh desert, miles away from the nearest road, with no access to a phone, paper or pen to write with, and no one to call a friend. He drinks water from the same trough as his animals.

Much has been written about the oppressive working conditions in the Gulf countries.

“Your passport is taken away, you cannot return, you are constantly under the threat of death,” says Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil of Manipal Centre for Humanities, who has researched labour migration.

In a conversation on YouTube, Najeeb, on whose life the book and the film are based, says he could never return to the places described in the story.

“I had left [Kerala] in 1991 with a lot of dreams. The experiences I had there, the horrible master and the life among goats - I lost my self-consciousness, I lost my mind,” he says.