Cube Critic: 'Rosewater', 'Legends of Ska'
by Euan Kerr
November 14, 2014
MPR News Arts Reporter and Cube Critic Euan Kerr joins Steve Seel and Jill Riley to talk about Rosewater, Jon Stewart's directorial debut. And guess what? It's not a comedy.
Rosewater is based on the true story of Iranian-born Canadian journalist, Maziar Bahari, who returned to Iran to interview Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the prime challenger to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. When Moussavi's supporters protested Ahmadinejad's declaration of victory, Bahari smuggled footage of the riots to the BBC. He was soon arrested by the Revolutionary Guard and — led by a man known only as "Rosewater" — was interrogated and tortured for 118 days.
Euan says Stewart's film centers on what happened to Bahari in prison, and about the relationship that emerges between Bahari and "Rosewater," the man who has been assigned to draw a confession out of Bahari, even through torture. "It's riveting stuff," Euan says, "quite scary at times."
Rosewater is rated R and is screening at the Landmark Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis.
Meanwhile, Legends of Ska is a locally made film by director Brad Klein, who went out and spoke to the original first-wave ska legends during a ska festival in Toronto. The film screens on Sunday, Nov. 16, at 3 p.m., at McNally Smith College of Music as part of the Sound Unseen festival.