Rosewater

Rosewater is a 2014 American political drama that marked Jon Stewart's debut as a feature film writer and director. It is adapted from Then They Came for Me, the memoir by Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molloy.

Bahari, based in London, travels to Tehran on what is meant to be a brief assignment covering Iran's 2009 presidential election, leaving his pregnant fiancée behind. In the turmoil that follows the vote he is arrested and held for over a hundred days in one of the country's most feared prisons. Ironically, part of the 'evidence' used to accuse him of espionage is an interview he gave to The Daily Show, the satirical program hosted by Stewart, which Iranian authorities presented as proof that he was in contact with an American spy. Throughout his interrogation his fate rests in the hands of a man he knows only by the scent of rosewater.

Gael García Bernal portrays Bahari, with Kim Bodnia, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Haluk Bilginer and Numan Acar among the cast. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August 2014 and opened in theaters that November. Reviews were generally positive, but it performed poorly at the box office, and Iran's state television accused Stewart of being funded by Zionists and working with the CIA.