Maziar Bahari stands in front of a display in the Museum’s Permanent Exhibition about the Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis, the subject of his 1994 documentary. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Maziar Bahari became interested in Jewish culture when he was exposed to it growing up in Tehran. After moving to Canada, he wanted to tell a story of immigration and made The Voyage of the St. Louis in 1994. When he returned to Iran to cover the Green Revolution in 2009, Bahari was imprisoned and spent more than 100 days in solitary confinement. During that time, he was interrogated about his statements against Holocaust denial, his film on the St. Louis, and his Jewish connections. Jon Stewart adapted Bahari’s memoir of this imprisonment into the 2014 film Rosewater. Bahari’s forthcoming documentary 82 Names, which was produced in cooperation with the Museum, tells the story of Mansour Omari, a human rights activist who survived imprisonment and torture by the Assad regime in Syria.
Speaker
Maziar Bahari, Iranian Canadian journalist and filmmaker
Event Chairs
Kylie and Benjamin Bass
NY Next Generation Board Chair
Jaymere Stein