Jon Stewart's directorial debut "Rosewater" is about Iran
The host of Comedy Central's popular "The Daily Show" will take an extended hiatus from this summer to direct his first movie which relates to Iran, The Huffington Post reports. Jon Stewart's directorial debut will be an adaptation of the memoir "Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story Of Love, Captivity And Survival," which tells the true story of Maziar Bahari, a journalist who spent 118 days in an Iranian prison in 2009. Scott Rudin will produce the film. Stewart has written the screenplay, now entitled "Rosewater."
Bahari has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" three times. In fact, he was accused by the Iranian government of being a spy partially for his first appearance on the comedy show. The film came about due to Stewart's friendship with Behari after his appearances on the show.
While Stewart has never directed a film, he is no stranger to Hollywood. He appeared in several movies prior to his "Daily Show" career, and hosted the Oscars twice, in 2006 and 2008.
Maziar Bahari, born 1967 in Tehran is an Iranian Canadian journalist, film maker and human rights activist. He was a reporter for Newsweek from 1998 to 2011. Bahari was incarcerated by the Iranian government from June 2009 to October 20, 2009 in the country’s notorious Evin prison. Bahari's family has been involved in dissent politics in Iran, his father was imprisoned by the shah's regime in the 1950s, and his sister Maryam under the revolutionary government of Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s.
Bahari is married to Paola Gourley, an Italian-English lawyer working in London for Latham & Watkins. The two met at the Frontline Club, a hangout for war reporters in Paddington. According to Legal Cheek, Bahari agreed to a deadline by Gourley to make a child with her and settle down. Gourley got pregnant soon after, but Bahari, who’d popped over to Iran to do a spot of reporting for Channel 4, was arrested and thrown into prison. Gourley gave birth to their baby daughter in October 2009 shortly after his release from prison.
See below for Bahari's most recent appearance on "The Daily Show" in June 2011:
Part 2:
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