Romanian extras outraged over Borat ridicule
Wednesday November 15, 2006
The residents of a remote Romanian village used as stand-ins for Kazakhs in the Borat movie are threatening to sue the film's producers for paying them a pittance to put farm animals in their homes and perform other crude antics.
The people of Glod, located 140km north-west of Bucharest, told the Associated Press yesterday that they were horrified and humiliated to find their abject poverty and simple ways ridiculed in the movie, which has raked in $67m (£35.4m) at the US box office in just two weeks.
"We thought they came here to help us, not mock us," said one resident while she swept a manure-stained street lined with shabby homes of crumbling brick and corrugated iron sheeting. "We haven't got anything here. We haven't got running water. We can't even bathe," she said. "We are poor people, but we are still people."
Staicu accused the producers of paying locals just $3.30 to $5.50, misleading the village into thinking the movie would be a documentary, refusing to sign proper filming contracts and enticing easily exploited peasants into performing crass acts.
But a spokesman for 20th Century Fox has said that locals were paid twice the going rate for extras. He said the production team and Cohen each donated $5,000 (£2,600) to the town, paid a location fee and bought it computers, school and office supplies. It was clear from the start that the film was a comedy, he said, dismissing as "misleading" the notion that villagers thought it was a documentary.
clipped from: film.guardian.co.uk