Fans of The Daily Show would have spotted a Jon Stewart-shaped abyss on the comedy news show earlier this year, albeit filled by the mercurial talents of Brit John Oliver.
Stewart was away directing his first feature film, Rosewater, an emotionally charged drama based on Maziar Bahari’s best-selling memoir Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story Of Love.
Gael Garcia Bernal stars as the Tehran-born broadcast journalist with Canadian citizenship who ventured back into Iran in 2009 in the hope of interviewing a presidential candidate, only to soon find himself covering protests which broke out in the wake of a seemingly fixed election.
As the government came down hard on the riots, Bahari found himself arrested and interrogated for 118 days by a man only identifying himself as Rosewater. Conversely, on the basis of the first trailer (below) it doesn’t look as though Stewart is taking any prisoners, directing what looks to be one of the best political thriller in years.
Couple this with the fact Bernal is already one of the best talents of his generation, and well, we have a lot to look forward to.
Feast your eyes on the action below.
Rosewater is in cinemas later this year