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 the BBC journalist Maziar Bahari.
Rosewater follows the Tehran-born Bahari, a 42-year-old broadcast journalist
with Canadian citizenship living in London. In June 2009, Bahari returned to
Iran to interview Mir-Hossein Moussavi, who was the prime challenger to
controversial incumbent president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. As Moussavi’s supporters rose up to protest
Ahmadinejad’s victory declaration hours before the polls closed on election
day, Bahari endured great personal risk by submitting camera footage of the
unfolding street riots to the BBC. Bahari was soon
arrested by Revolutionary Guard police, led by a man identifying himself only as
“Rosewater,” who proceeded to torture and interrogate the journalist over
the next 118 days.
