Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian refugee who inspired the film “The Terminal” (2004), died this Saturday (11/12) at the age of 76. He suffered a fatal heart attack at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France.
Nasseri lived in the arrivals terminal of the French airport from 1988 to 2006. And, according to the British tabloid The Mirror, in recent weeks he had returned to live at the Charles de Gaulle.
The reason he got “stuck” in place was the lack of documents to land in France. Nasseri said he was expelled from Iran in 1977 for protesting the shah and was then granted refugee status by Belgium. But he had no documents and the investigations never proved his expulsion from the country.
In November 1988 he traveled to other European countries in an attempt to find his mother and ended up being detained in France, with no other country accepting him as he did not have a passport.
With nowhere else to send him, French authorities released him at the arrivals terminal, leaving him dependent on airport officials for food and medicine.
The case ended up in court, and in 1992 a French court ruled that Nasseri could not be deported from the airport, but also could not enter the country. Faced with the impasse, France and Belgium subsequently offered residency to the Iranian, who, to everyone’s surprise, refused, remaining at the airport until 2006.
Despite not being officially mentioned as an inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s film, the director bought the rights to his biography to produce ‘The Terminal’.
In fiction, the character played by Tom Hanks was called Viktor Navorski, a traveler from the fictional country Krakozhia. After a coup, Viktor cannot enter the United States or return to his home country, as the American government does not recognize the new government there. Therefore, he is forced to live in the arrivals terminal of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Check out the movie trailer below.
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Source: Terra
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
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