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Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
File:Borat movie.png IMDB 8.1/10 (10,476 votes) top 250: #116
Directed by	Larry Charles
Written by	Sacha Baron Cohen Peter Baynham Anthony Hines Dan Mazer
Produced by	Monica Levinson Dan Mazer Jay Roach
Starring	Sacha Baron Cohen Ken Davitian Pamela Anderson
Cinematography	Luke Geissbuhler Anthony Hardwick
Edited by	Craig Alpert Peter Teschner James Thomas
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	November 1 2006 November 2, 2006 November 2, 2006 November 2, 2006 November 2, 2006 November 3, 2006 November 3, 2006 November 3, 2006 November 23, 2006
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$18,000,000 USD

Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (or simply Borat!) is a film starring Sacha Baron Cohen and directed by Larry Charles. It is a mockumentary comedy featuring Baron Cohen's satirical character Borat, as he travels around the U.S.A. meeting different people.

The film entered public release on November 1, 2006 in Belgium, and by November 3, it had opened in fourteen European countries as well as the United States and Canada. The film's $26.4 million opening weekend in North America is the highest in history for a film released in fewer than 1,000 theaters.^{[citation needed]}

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The film involves Borat leaving his home in Kazakhstan to go to the "U.S. and A." and record a documentary at the behest of the fictitious Kazakh Ministry of Information. He leaves behind his mother, wife and the town rapist, bringing along his obese producer Azamat. While in America, he sees an episode of Baywatch and immediately falls in love with Pamela Anderson. Once he learns that the wife he left behind has died, he buys a dilapidated ice cream truck and drives (Azamat is afraid to fly as he believes 9/11 was the work of Jews) from New York to Los Angeles to have Anderson's vagin and make her his wife.

Through the course of his trip across the country, he continues to get footage for his documentary, meeting feminists, black youths playing Cee-lo, visiting an antique shop full of Confederate memorabilia and attending a high society dinner in the South (on Secession Drive) . Much of the movie features unstaged vignettes of Borat interviewing and interacting with Americans who believe he is an actual foreign TV personality with no understanding of American customs.

In one scene, Borat goes into a gun shop and asks the man behind the counter: "Which gun would be best to defend against a Jew?". The man considers for a moment before recommending either a 9mm or a .45. Since Borat is a foreigner, he is not allowed to buy a gun. Borat later buys a bear instead. In the course of his journey, he has a naked fight with Azamat (shown "censored" by a large moving black rectangle over Borat's penis and "testes satchel") in a hotel room that spills over throughout the hallways of their hotel and into a crowded elevator.

As a result, Azamat abandons Borat, taking his passport, all of their money and their bear. Borat's spirits are further dampened when some drunken University of South Carolina students he befriends show him the infamous "Pam and Tommy" video, revealing that she is not the virgin he thought she was. However, he renews his faith by attending a Pentecostal Christian revival meeting, where he speaks in tongues and learns to forgive Azamat and Pamela. He accompanies several church members on a bus to Los Angeles, where he finds Azamat, dressed as Oliver Hardy, whom Borat mistakes for Hitler. The two reconcile and try to track down Pamela Anderson.

He finally comes face-to-face with Anderson at an autograph-signing event at the Virgin Megastore at The Block at Orange in Orange County, where he shows her his "traditional marriage sack", and chases her around the store and into the shopping center parking lot in an attempt to make off with her. Afterwards, Borat then marries a prostitute he had befriended earlier in the film and goes back to Kazakhstan with his new wife. Template:Endspoiler

The film was given a sneak preview at the 2006 Comic Con International in San Diego, California on July 21 2006. To get in, one had to present a very crude ticket printed on cardboard that was passed out to people from the ice cream truck Borat drives in the film. The film was shown at Pacific Theaters in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego. Sneak previews were also given to test audiences throughout New York City towards the end of the summer. After the screening, audience members were asked to fill out what segments they thought were offensive, funny or unnecessary.

The film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7 2006 at the Ryerson University Theatre. Sacha Baron Cohen arrived in character as Borat in a cart pulled by women dressed as peasants. The projector broke during the movie. After attempts to fix it, including an attempt by director Michael Moore, the screening was rescheduled to the next night at the Elgin Theatre. Michael Moore was also present for the next screening, as well as Dustin Hoffman.

The film was also featured as part of the MySpace Black Carpet premier promotion. On September 20 2006 the film was screened in twenty-five cities across the globe, with Borat making a surprise appearance at one of the screening locations. The screening was free to Myspace members and Borat made his appearance at the San Francisco screening.

The film also featured as part of the SeeFilmFirst campaign in the United Kingdom. This meant that at select Odeon cinemas up and down the UK, with a printed off ticket for one or two persons they could walk into the cinema and see an exclusive preview at 6.30 pm on 10th October 2006. There were also previews in various cinemas across the UK at 6.30 pm on October 24 and October 25 2006. These tickets were allocated in advance and are not widely known to the general public. Considering the huge publicity, the screenings were largely empty.

Similarly, the film was screened in the Paramount Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand on October 10 2006. Photocopied tickets were distributed publicly throughout the afternoon and a packed theatre watched an exclusive screening at 8:30pm.

The film was also shown on September 29 2006, to an audience in a Washington, D.C. theater. Borat announced the screening the day before when he had attempted to visit the White House and Embassy of Kazakhstan. Although the screening was meant for "Premier George Walter Bush," fans who printed a copy of the invitation on Borat's MySpace site were allowed into the screening. Actor Ken Davitian, who played Borat's producer and sidekick Azamat in the film, was present at the screening in character.

Several scenes that were removed from the final cut of the movie were released onto YouTube in late September. These scenes involve Borat singing a traditional Kazakh prayer, trying to do so again, being pulled over by Dallas police officers, being in a supermarket, being in a prison, and telling a doctor which sexually transmitted diseases he has.

The movie was screened for members of the press on September 27 2006 at the Mann 6 in Hollywood. This was attended by press and the public. This served as the junket screening for the press day scheduled for October 20 2006. For the press day, journalists were told they had to submit their questions ahead of time so that Sacha Baron Cohen could prepare because he would be doing the press conference as the Borat character only and would not be available for interviews as Baron Cohen himself. Only two select outlets were able to videotape the press conference.^[1]

German critic Tobias Kniebe stated in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he was bitten on the neck by a colleague who totally lost control laughing during the German press-screening.^[2]

In late October, less than two weeks before the film's debut, Twentieth Century Fox scaled back its American release from 2,000 to 800 cinemas after marketing-survey data showed unexpectedly poor levels of audience awareness, with only 27% of respondents being aware of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan compared with percentages as high as 81% for the film's opening-weekend competitors. The move surprised industry professionals, who could not recall such a move being made so close to a film's release.^[3]

A group called European Center for Antiziganism Research, which works against antiziganism, negative attitudes toward gypsies (aka Roma and Sinti people), filed a complaint (PDF file, in German) with German prosecutors on October 18, 2006, based on Borat's comments about gypsies in his film. The complaint accuses him of defamation and inciting violence against an ethnic group.^[4] (Volksverhetzung). As a consequence, 20th Century Fox declared that it would remove all parts referring to Roma people from trailers shown on German television as well as on the movie's website.^[5]

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was exceptionally well received by critics, with several having declared it one of the funniest films ever made.^[6] Rotten Tomatoes classified it as one of the best-reviewed films of 2006, with an aggregate "fresh" rating of 96%^[7] - a very rare feat for a comedy.

On Internet Movie Database, the movie has a rating of 8.6 out of 10 from 10,476 votes. As of November 6th, 2006, the movie is #116 on IMDB's Top 250 list of all-time highest-rated films, as graded by users.

Audiences embraced the film, which played to sell-out crowds in many of its U.S. showings on its opening night. This led to a largely unexpected first-day gross of $9,050,000^[8], wildly surpassing its competition despite having been shown on only 837 screens, far fewer than the competition which is shown on over 3,000 screens.

Over the opening weekend of the film, it unexpectedly got to No. 1 on the weekend with a total of $26.9 million, beating its competitors, Flushed Away and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. The film's opening weekend's theatre average was an estimated $31,511, topping over Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith yet behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Spider-Man. [1]

There is a soundtrack for the movie, released on October 24 2006 on iTunes, and October 31 in CD stores.

This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles.

• The scenes in the film that are supposed to take place in Kazakhstan were actually filmed in Romania. Several characters purporting to speak Kazakh are really speaking Romanian.
• Sacha Baron Cohen speaks Hebrew in the film (not Kazakh), while Ken Davitian, the actor who plays Azamat, speaks Armenian.^[9] They also use several common sayings from Slavic languages.
• The hotel Borat attempts to stay at in Atlanta, GA is actually the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, TX.
• The film is said to be 2,300,000,000 Tenge in Kazakh currency, which is converted to $18 million in American currency.
• The "jagshemash!!!" greeting Borat uses to yell, is taken from Polish "Jak się masz?", Czech "Jak se máš?", "How are you?" He also says "chenquieh" [2] which is also taken from Polish and other Western Slavic languages.
• While presenting his house, Borat says "tishe" to his house-cow, which is taken from Polish "ciszej", "Quieter", or also from Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Bosnian, Czech and Russian "Тише/Tiše" (Tishe) meaning "quieter" or "be quiet"
• For the movie, Borat made a song called "You, Be My Wife" with Croatian keytar player Belinda.
• During the credits the film shows a large picture of a man who is supposed to be Kazakhstan's president. In reality it is Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Borat.

• Official Borat site
• Official movie site
• Borat at IMDb
• Borat's page at MySpace
• "Borat makes Americans look good"

Trailers

• Trailer, apple.com
• Trailer G, apple.com
• Trailers, movies.yahoo.com