The most famous — heck, the only Iranian journalist and filmmaker — that you know these days is Maziar Bahari.
The story of Maziar Bahari, and The Daily Show's connection to him, is why John Oliver is sitting in The Daily Show chair this summer.
What you may not have known about Bahari is that he has a Canadian connection.
While Bahari was born and grew up in Tehran, Iran, he graduated from Concordia University in Montréal.
Bahari is often identified as a Iranian-Canadian journalist, though he lives in London.
While in Canada, Bahari made his first film, a documentary called "The Voyage of the St. Louis" about 937 Jewish refugees who tried to escape Nazi Germany in 1939, only to be denied by Cuba and the United States and forced to go back to Germany.
As fans of The Daily Show can tell you, Bahari was arrested, interrogated, and tortured after appearing on the program in 2009 with Jason Jones, who is Canadian. Bahari's book, "Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival," is the inspiration for Rosewater, the film Jon Stewart will direct this summer.
We'll leave you with a link to an interview Bahari did with Q host Jian Ghomeshi earlier this year.
photo credit: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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