The man who lived at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years and whose epic inspired the film “Terminal” died this Saturday, local media reports.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian political refugee, died apparently of natural causes in one of the terminals of the French capital’s main airport, to which he had apparently returned several weeks ago.
Nasseri was born in 1945 and after unsuccessfully trying to settle down in several European countries because he lacked the necessary documents, Nasseri was trapped in the Charles de Gaulle from 1988 to 2006 when he was hospitalized for food poisoning.
After being released from the hospital, he was taken in by various humanitarian organizations and lived in an emergency shelter.
His epic inspired two films, the French Tombés du ciel (1994), starring the great Jean Rochefort, and Terminal (2004), directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, which brought his case to global attention .