Rosewater
VIEW EVENT DETAILSFilm Screening & Post- Screening Q&A with MAZIAR BAHARI, Journalist
Registration 6:15pm
Screening 6:30pm
Post Screening Q&A 8:15pm
Close 8:45pm
Running time: 104 minutes; Language: English
Director: Jon Stewart
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. Making his directorial debut, Jon Stewart tells the tale of Bahari's months-long imprisonment and interrogation in this powerful and affecting docudrama, which features a potent and persuasive performance by Gael García Bernal (No, 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.
Maziar Bahari is an Iranian-Canadian journalist, film maker and human rights activist. He was a reporter for Newsweek from 1998 to 2011. Incarcerated by the Iranian government between June and October, 2009, his memoir “Then They Came for Me”, was a New York Times bestseller and the basis for Jon Stewart's 2014 film “Rosewater”. He has produced a number of documentaries and news reports for Channel 4, BBC and other broadcasters around the world on subjects as varied as private lives of Ayatollahs, African architecture, Iranians' passion for football and contemporary history of Iran. His films have won several awards and nominations including an Emmy in 2005. In September 2009, Mr. Bahari was nominated by Desmond Tutu for the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, widely known as Spain's Nobel Prize. He is married to Paola Gourley, who gave birth to their first child in October 2009 shortly after his release from prison.
Event Details
Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty