Exclusive: Channel 4 has ordered Britain’s Human Zoos, a doc about a shocking but forgotten Victorian era entertainment practice.
The doc will likely air on the UK network later this year, and we hear active discussions are underway with a buyer in the U.S., with a Hollywood studio player understood to be interested.
The shocking exposé will see acclaimed Somali-British author Nadifa Mohamed investigate the stories of the people brought to Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to appear in exhibitions called ‘human zoos.’ The pastime was hugely popular in the UK, Europe and the U.S. as a forum where people from western colonizers could see Black and Brown people for the first time.
Many members of the zoos were transported from their homelands under dubious circumstances to be used as a form of entertainment, many more were subject to psuedo-scientific studies and their...
The doc will likely air on the UK network later this year, and we hear active discussions are underway with a buyer in the U.S., with a Hollywood studio player understood to be interested.
The shocking exposé will see acclaimed Somali-British author Nadifa Mohamed investigate the stories of the people brought to Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to appear in exhibitions called ‘human zoos.’ The pastime was hugely popular in the UK, Europe and the U.S. as a forum where people from western colonizers could see Black and Brown people for the first time.
Many members of the zoos were transported from their homelands under dubious circumstances to be used as a form of entertainment, many more were subject to psuedo-scientific studies and their...
- 10/4/2023
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian man whose life story inspired Steven Spielberg's film "The Terminal," died Saturday at the airport he had previously called home, according to NBC News. Nasseri, who was also known as Sir Alfred Mehran, lived in Terminal 1 of Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for eighteen years before leaving in 2006, and reportedly had taken up residence there again in the weeks before his passing.
Nasseri's story is a complex and ambiguous one, though by all accounts, he began his airport residency in 1988 when a lack of residency papers -- for both the country he was trying to leave, and the one he was trying to enter -- landed him in a sort of legal purgatory. Eventually the paperwork issues were ironed out, but Nasseri chose to continue living at the airport. As of publication time, there doesn't seem to be a clear reason for his recent return,...
Nasseri's story is a complex and ambiguous one, though by all accounts, he began his airport residency in 1988 when a lack of residency papers -- for both the country he was trying to leave, and the one he was trying to enter -- landed him in a sort of legal purgatory. Eventually the paperwork issues were ironed out, but Nasseri chose to continue living at the airport. As of publication time, there doesn't seem to be a clear reason for his recent return,...
- 11/12/2022
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
Merhan Karimi Nasseri has spent 16 years living in Charles de Gaulle airport. Now Steven Spielberg's Terminal has catapulted him to international stardom - but casts little light on who he really is. And Sir Alfred, as he calls himself, isn't too sure either. Paul Berczeller, who spent a year with Nasseri, set out to unravel the mystery
I first saw him, many years ago now, staring out with an uncanny gaze of blank intensity from the pages of a newspaper. Seated alone on a bench, immune to the endless motion of the airport around him, there was a curious inscrutability to his slight, balding yet dignified countenance. He looked like some unlikely cross between a Zen master and Chaplin's Tramp. He had these amazing long brows, as dark as his hooded eyes, and a small, perfectly groomed moustache perched on top of his upper lip. It was like a caricature of a face,...
I first saw him, many years ago now, staring out with an uncanny gaze of blank intensity from the pages of a newspaper. Seated alone on a bench, immune to the endless motion of the airport around him, there was a curious inscrutability to his slight, balding yet dignified countenance. He looked like some unlikely cross between a Zen master and Chaplin's Tramp. He had these amazing long brows, as dark as his hooded eyes, and a small, perfectly groomed moustache perched on top of his upper lip. It was like a caricature of a face,...
- 9/6/2004
- by Paul Berczeller
- The Guardian - Film News
Merhan Karimi Nasseri has spent 16 years living in Charles de Gaulle airport. Now Steven Spielberg's Terminal has catapulted him to international stardom - but casts little light on who he really is. And Sir Alfred, as he calls himself, isn't too sure either. Paul Berczeller, who spent a year with Nasseri, set out to unravel the mystery
I first saw him, many years ago now, staring out with an uncanny gaze of blank intensity from the pages of a newspaper. Seated alone on a bench, immune to the endless motion of the airport around him, there was a curious inscrutability to his slight, balding yet dignified countenance. He looked like some unlikely cross between a Zen master and Chaplin's Tramp. He had these amazing long brows, as dark as his hooded eyes, and a small, perfectly groomed moustache perched on top of his upper lip. It was like a caricature of a face,...
I first saw him, many years ago now, staring out with an uncanny gaze of blank intensity from the pages of a newspaper. Seated alone on a bench, immune to the endless motion of the airport around him, there was a curious inscrutability to his slight, balding yet dignified countenance. He looked like some unlikely cross between a Zen master and Chaplin's Tramp. He had these amazing long brows, as dark as his hooded eyes, and a small, perfectly groomed moustache perched on top of his upper lip. It was like a caricature of a face,...
- 9/6/2004
- by Paul Berczeller
- The Guardian - Film News
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