Although Daily Show Jon Stewart claims that he has not directed a “political film,” he is not fooling anyone: Titles at the end of Rosewater note that hundreds of journalists have been at risk of their lives for trying to let the world know what is happening. The film focuses on Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari (played by Gael García Bernal), who goes to Iran to cover the 2009 election and the aftermath—a massive protest that turned violent. Arrested because his camera footage displays that violence, he is held in solitary confinement for 118 days and tortured, mostly mentally (because that works better than physical), until he becomes so desperate that he gives an obviously phony confession, whereupon the need of the Iranian government to feed the narrative that foreign spies work for the CIA is only partly fulfilled. When his plight rises to the level of a diplomatic protest by Hillary Clinton, he is soon released. During the film he imagines that his dead Iranian father (Haluk Bilginer), who was physically tortured while imprisoned by both the Shah and the Ayatollah, urges him to keep his mouth shut but has no advice about mental torture. Based on Bahari’s book (coauthored with Aimee Malloy) Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival, the film reveals how the Iranians deal with protesters in prison (not much different from other despotisms). The Political Film Society has nominated Rosewater as best film exposé and best film on human rights of 2014. MH