The Daily Show host Jon Stewart recently took a break from his hosting duties on his satire news show to direct a movie. The movie, entitled Rosewater, released its first trailer today. It is based on a book by journalist Maziar Bahari, who wrote it based on real life events. Jon Stewart adapted the story, and wrote the screenplay for his directorial debut.
The lead character, played by Gael Garcia Bernal plays Bahari, who was covering Iran during the 2009 presidential elections. He was a journalist for Newsweek at that time, when the riots broke out after the announcement that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won. Bahari was on hand to capture the raw footages of these live, unfolding events, and he sent the video clips to BBC.
But the Iranian police found out and threw him in jail, where he was detained for 118 days. In Prison, Bahari was subjected to severe torture and interrogation. The man who interrogated him was bent on making him confess that he was a spy against the nation of Iran. Bahari called the man "Rosewater," because of the scent that emanated from him.
We see in the trailer Bahari leaving his pregnant fiancee, his coverage and this eventual capture. Much of the film uses raw footage that the real Bahari captured during his coverage of the tumultuous time in Iraq.
Jon Stewart's interest in the book stems from a unique connection with the journalist Bahari. During his stint in Iran, The Daily Show interviewed the journalist, and this was particular interview was taken advantage of by Iranian police and used as proof that he was a spy for America.
The Daily Show has never shied away from controversial issues, such as this one. Recently, Jon Stewart got a lot of flak for his coverage of the Gaza conflict, when he dared criticize Israel over its bombing of Hamas.
Stewart said, "Both sides are engaging in aerial bombardment, but one side appears to be bomb-better at it." And while Israel has an anti-missile defense system and uses an app that warns of incoming missiles, Hamas has none.
The segment earned the ire of plenty of people, most of them pro-Jewish journalists and analysts.
See the trailer for Rosewater here:
