In 2009, The Daily Show interviewed the Iranian-Canadian journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari. In the segment, the comedy show's correspondent pretended to be an American spy. The joke didn't seem nearly as funny months later, when Bahari found himself imprisoned in Iran and footage from the interview was used as evidence of his perfidy.
Bahari had returned to his motherland to cover the Green Revolution. Despite efforts at self-censorship-his father and sister had previously been imprisoned for activism-he still was arrested on suspicion of being an American agent.
Now Jon Stewart has made a movie about Bahari's four months of incarceration and torture. The film, Rosewater, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, has already brought in at least one negative review: A "media critic" on Iranian state TV decried the film as CIA-funded Zionist propaganda, saying "Jon has been directing an ultra-formulaic movie commissioned by his masters." -Katherine Mangu-Ward
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