Perthians, the Luna cinemas in Leederville premieres ROSEWATER from Thursday February 19. The Luna Outdoor also screens ROSEWATER from Feb 19 through to Wednesday February 25th. So fans of The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, can catch his directorial debut indoors the usual way or in the balmy outdoors-iness of a Perth evening.
Stewart’s movie is the true story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari (played by Gael García Bernal), whose appearance on Stewart’s show in 2009 precipitated his five-month imprisonment by the Iranian government.
In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran’s volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn’t like it – and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.
Stewart tells the tale of Bahari’s months-long imprisonment and interrogation in this powerful and affecting docu-drama, which features a potent and persuasive performance by Gael García Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) as Bahari. Recounting Bahari’s efforts to maintain his hope and his sanity in the face of isolation and persecution-through memories of his family, recollections of the music he loves, and thoughts of his wife and unborn child-ROSEWATER is both a moving personal story and a tribute to those journalists who risk their freedom, and even their lives, to tell the true stories behind world-changing events.
