Rosewater is a 2014 American drama film written and directed by Jon Stewart, based on the memoir Then They Came for Me by Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molloy. It recounts Bahari's 2009 imprisonment by Iran, connected to an interview he participated in on The Daily Show that same year; Iranian authorities presented the interview as evidence that he was in communication with an American spy. Due to the content of the film, Stewart has been accused by Iran's state TV of being funded by Zionists and working with the CIA. The film was released in theaters on November 14, 2014.
Plot
In 2009, London-based Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was detained in Iran for 118 days because of a satirical interview he gave regarding the country's presidential election. Bahari was arrested and, while his pregnant fiancée waited for him, spent four months at Evin Prison being brutally interrogated. The film suggests his video evidence of the protests he provided to the BBC was the actual reason for his incarceration.
Bahari was usually blindfolded when being interrogated, and the sole distinguishing feature of his interrogator was that the interrogator smelled of rosewater.
Cast
- Gael GarcÃa Bernal as Maziar Bahari, a journalist who was interrogated and tortured over 118 days in Iran
- Shohreh Aghdashloo as Moloojoon
- Kim Bodnia as "Rosewater"
- Dimitri Leonidas as Davood
- Haluk Bilginer as Baba Akbar
- Arian Moayed as Hamid
- Amir El-Masry as Alireza
- Jason Jones as himself
Production
Rosewater was filmed in Jordan, with footage from Iran, between June and mid-August 2013. It had a budget of $5â€"10 million.
Release
On July 31, 2014, it was announced that the film would be released on November 7, 2014. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 29, 2014, and it was screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival in September 2014.
Reception
Rosewater received mostly positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 74%, based on 112 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's consensus reads "Timely, solidly acted, and unabashedly earnest, Rosewater serves as an impressive calling card for first-time director Jon Stewart." On Metacritic as of 22 November 2014, the film has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally positive reviews".
References
External links
- Rosewater on Facebook
- Rosewater on Twitter
- Rosewater at the Internet Movie Database
- Rosewater at Box Office Mojo
- Rosewater at Rotten Tomatoes
- Rosewater at Metacritic
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