The prototype of the film's protagonist is an Iranian-Canadian journalist named Maziar Bahari. In 2009, Bahari was a reporter for Newsweek in Iran, reporting on the Iranian presidential election that year. On June 13, after the election committee announced the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supporters of his rival took to the streets. Bahari photographed the protest, which was called the "Iranian Green Revolution". On June 21, he was taken away from his home in Tehran and released after 118 days in prison. Bahari later wrote his memoir "Then They Came for Me", which was published in 2011. In the book, he described how he was tortured and interrogated, and the other party regarded him as a spy who had infiltrated Iran. Because his eyes were blindfolded, he could not see the face of the interrogator, but only smelled the rose water on him. Bahari called the interrogator "Rosewater" in the book, which is also the title of the film.