First 'Rosewater' trailer, Jon Stewart's first film, debuts

Last summer, Jon Stewart left his post on The Daily Show to shoot his debut film, Rosewater. Now, Stewart and Open World Films are giving viewers a look at his take on journalist Maziar Bahari’s memoir Then They Came for Me with the film’s first trailer.

In the trailer, the London-based Bahari, played by Gael García Bernal, leaves his pregnant fiancée to cover the 2009 Iranian presidential election. Bahari is then captured and tortured for 118 days, believed to be a spy by his interrogator. The film’s name comes from Bahari’s statement that the only distinctive feature of his captor, who kept him blindfolded, was that he smelled of rosewater. In an ironic twist, Bahari’s real-life interview on Stewart’s show was used as evidence by his captors of Bahari’s guilt, though the film looks to be too serious in tone to play up that plot point.

From the trailer, it seems Stewart’s directorial debut will use real-life news footage to ground the scenes Stewart shot, which were filmed in Jordan. Much of the trailer showcases snippets of Bahari’s introduction into the country and the torture he suffered.

Rosewater opens on Nov. 7, but will first be screened at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival.