First ROSEWATER trailer previews Jon Stewart’s directorial debut

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Rosewater trailer previews a dramatic true story adaptation

Last summer The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart took a brief hiatus to start work on his motion picture directorial debut titled Rosewater, and the first full-length trailer for the film has finally surfaced. For those not in the know, the movie is based on the true story and memoir regarding a Tehran-born Canadian citizen/journalist who was captured and tortured in Iran in 2009. Rosewater is a big step toward the dramatic and a possibly-welcome shuffle away from comedy for Stewart, and it’ll be interesting to see how the movie plays out on the big screen.

Watch the first trailer for Rosewater after the jump.

Unfortunately, there’s a good chance Rosewater will get more publicity as being Stewart’s first feature film effort behind the camera than it will for the material and the story being shared, but you never know. Here’s hoping it’ll be a success in both regards.

Here’s an official plot synopsis for Rosewater:

Rosewater is based on The New York Times best-selling memoir “Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival,” written by Maziar Bahari [and] follows the Tehran-born Bahari, a broadcast journalist with Canadian citizenship. In June 2009, Bahari returned to Iran to interview Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was the prime challenger to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Mousavi’s supporters rose up to protest Ahmadinejad’s victory declaration hours before the polls closed, Bahari endured personal risk by sending footage of the street riots to the BBC. Bahari was arrested by police, led by a man identifying himself only as “Rosewater,” who tortured and interrogated him over the next 118 days. With Bahari’s wife leading an international campaign to have her husband freed, and Western media outlets keeping the story alive, Iranian authorities released Bahari on $300,000 bail and the promise he would act as a spy for the government.

Rosewater star Gael Garcia Bernal, and the movie is schedule for a November 7, 2014 release.

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