Merhan Karimi Nasseri, also known as Sir Alfred Merhan, is an Iranian refugee who has been living on a red plastic bench next to a luggage store in the departure lounge of Terminal 1, Charles de Gaulle Airport since August 8, 1988. He is the unrecognized inspiration for this year’s Tom Hanks film Terminal as “no publicity materials, DVD “special features” or the film’s website ever mention Nasseri’s plight as an inspiration for the film. In fact the DVD implies that the story was so ‘incredible’ that it leaves the view with the impression that the story was solely a result of the screenwriters imagination.
However, it has been reported in the Guardian that Spielberg’s Dreamworks paid Nasseri several hundred thousand dollars for his life story, and although the Kafkaesque situation has been resolved and Sir Alfred is now a free man, his fragile mental state makes it difficult for him to imagine life outside, the money stays in the bank, and Nasseri stays where he has been for the past 16 years, on the red bench.
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