On November 12, 2022, Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri passed away from a heart attack in a terminal at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport, Deadline reports. The man, who was believed to be in his late ’70s, was not there on business, nor was he awaiting a flight, though he was enduring a long layover – a 34-year layover, in fact. Nasseri’s, or rather “Sir Alfred’s,” tale is a bizarre one of belonging and inspired multiple documentaries, media attention, and one of the world’s most well-known filmmakers, Steven Spielberg, to reach out for the rights to tell it. In spite of public interest that spanned the course of over three decades, the man in the terminal seems to have finally taken flight, maintaining the mystery that perplexed so many.
So little was truly known about Nasseri, who arrived at Charles de Gaulle in 1988 looking to gain admission to England. After being exiled from his home country of Iran in 1977 for, according to The New York Times, protesting “the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi while a student in England,” Nasseri ultimately found himself in a difficult limbo situation when he, reportedly, lost his temporary refugee papers. The story of how the man’s papers and passport were lost vary depending on the source, but the outcome is all the same. Nasseri was in a No Man’s Land at Terminal 1, where he remained from 1988 to 2006. After being hospitalized, Nasseri was then shuttled between shelters before returning to the airport that had become his home.
This perplexing situation naturally piqued the curiosity of journalists, documentarians, and Christian Bourget, the human rights lawyer who took on Nasseri’s case. In particular, in 2003, director Spielberg’s production company DreamWorks reached out with an offer. The rights to Nasseri’s story gleaned approximately $250,000, though Bourget admitted, “While he became a bit richer, Alfred is extremely paranoid and confused.” Still, Nasseri seemed thrilled by the interactions and the notoriety his strange predicament inspired, whether he knew who Spielberg was or not (he did not).
In 2004, Spielberg’s film The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks and an ensemble cast, raked in $219 million at the box office, worldwide. The movie, adapted to screenplay by Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can), Spielberg directed on Nasseri’s story is an obviously dramatized version with a distinctly Eat, Pray, Love-the-American Dream spin on it. The Terminal features a twinkling-eyed Hanks as Viktor Navorski, an immigrant from a fictional country who finds himself stranded at JFK Airport when his government collapses, rendering his papers null and void. In typical Spielberg fashion, Hanks undergoes a journey of fantastical proportions within the confines of the airport, falling in love and making genuine human connection. The cast also stars Stanley Tucci, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Zoë Saldana and Andor‘s Diego Luna.
While it appears Nasseri never quite made it to his destination, it’s arguable that perhaps his return to a terminal stay at the Charles de Gaulle was his intended journey’s end. After all, home is where the heart is, and Nasseri’s Terminal 1 camp certainly touched the hearts of many who sought to provide comfort, aid and to tell his story. You can watch the trailer for Spielberg’s inspired-by film The Terminal below:
