Jon Stewart taking break from The Daily Show

Washington - Jon Stewart is taking time off from The Daily Show to direct a film based on an Iranian-Canadian journalist's nightmare in a Tehran jail, the Comedy Channel cable network said Tuesday.

The feature film, Rosewater, grew out of interviews that Maziar Bahari gave The Daily Show after he was detained in solitary confinement and subjected to torture for 118 days during the post-election protests that gripped Iran in 2009.

Stewart - one of America's most-watched political comedians and host of The Daily Show for 14 years - adapted a script from Bahari's best-selling account of his ordeal, Then They Came for Me.

On its website, The Hollywood Reporter said Stewart would be taking 12 weeks off, starting from June, to direct the film, with John Oliver taking his place in the anchor's chair.

Rosewater will mark Stewart's directorial debut.

* The Daily Show with Jon Stewart airs on DStv's Comedy Central (channel 122) Tuesday-Friday at 23:50 - repeated at 03:35 and 06:45.