The man whose true story inspired Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Terminal’ has died

Released in 2004, ‘The Terminal’, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Jeff Nathanson and Sacha Gervasi, was based on the real case of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who lived at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport between 1988 and 2006 without being able to regulate its documentation. Last November 12 Nasseri died of natural causes at the age of 77 in the same airport, in Terminal 2F, where according to Deadline he had returned to reside for a few weeks.

When Nasseri arrived in France from Heathrow, he was left in legal limbo having lost papers identifying him as a refugee and carrying nothing to prove his identity. Human rights lawyer Christian Bourget took up his case and prevented the French government from expelling him from the country, even though he was unable to obtain a transit permit, so he had to remain inside the airport in state of irregularity. The French government granted Nasseri a temporary residence permit and passport in 1999, but he refused to sign the documents. and preferred to stay at the airport where he spent his days listening to the radio, studying economics or reading books. In 2006 Nasseri had to be hospitalized and was relocated first to a hotel and then to a reception center, where he would stay until he wanted to return to the airport in 2022.

free adaptation

In 2004 Nasseri published his autobiography, ‘The Terminal Man’, based on the diaries he has written since his arrival at the Paris airport. First, in 2003, Dreamworks, paid Nasseri $250,000 for the rights to his story, though Spielberg and his team ultimately adapted it so loosely that it’s not even mentioned as an inspiration in any of the promotional documents. In the film, Nasseri is played by Tom Hanks under the name of Viktor Navorski, a character with a happier ending than in real life. Nasseri said he’s excited about the film, though it’s unlikely he’s actually seen it in theatres.

The life of this undocumented refugee also inspired Philippe Lioret’s film ‘In Transit’ starring Jean Rochefort; the short story ‘The Fifteen Year Staircase’ by Michael Paterniti; the documentaries ‘Waiting for Godot at De Gaulle’ by Alexis Kouros and ‘Sir Alfred at Charles De Gaulle Airport’ by Hamid Rahmanian and Melissa Hibbard; the mockumentary ‘Here to Where’ by Glen Luchford and Paul Berczeller; and the work ‘Flight’ by Jonathan Dove.