VOTD: Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ Sendoff Details His Upcoming Movie ‘Rosewater’
Fans ofThe Daily Show with Jon Stewartwere met with a decidedly different show Thursday night. It was Stewart’s final show before he leaves for the summerto helm his first film,Rosewater. He’ll return to his award-winning Comedy Central news show in September.
Before leaving, Stewart laid out exactly how the film came about. He showed the initial report on Iranian citizens that started the story, how that tangentially lead to journalistMaziar Baharibeing imprisoned and tortured, and how that experience turned into the bookThen They Came For Me.
After the jump, check out the segments ofThe Daily Showwhere Stewart talks about the film, as well as the full episode.
Here’s the story which began this long journey for both Bahari and Stewart, with current commentary:
Here’s the follow up from the episode:
And the full episode isat this link.
Stewart castGael Garcia Bernalas Bahari in the film, which he adapted from the book. You can read the description below, andmore on the film here.
For the Bahari family, wars, coups, and revolutions are not distant concepts but intimate realities they have suffered for generations: Maziar’s father was imprisoned by the shah in the 1950s, and his sister by Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s. Alone in his cell at Evin Prison, fearing the worst, Maziar draws strength from his memories of the courage of his father and sister in the face of torture, and hears their voices speaking to him across the years. He dreams of being with Paola in London, and imagines all that she and his rambunctious, resilient eighty-four-year-old mother must be doing to campaign for his release. During the worst of his encounters with Rosewater, he silently repeats the names of his loved ones, calling on their strength and love to protect him and praying he will be released in time for the birth of his first child.
A riveting, heart-wrenching memoir, Then They Came for Me offers insight into the past fifty years of regime change in Iran, as well as the future of a country where the democratic impulses of the youth continually clash with a government that becomes more totalitarian with each passing day.
