KEY POINTS:
Romania may not be a stop on Borat's fictional road trip but villagers are furious their roles in this month's top-grossing American film by a British comedian earned them a few laughs but little cash.
Nestled in a narrow valley in southern Romania, the village of Glod starred as Borat's hometown in Kazakhstan where, in the film, peasants live with cattle, horses are used to pull cars and brothers can share steamy kisses with their sisters.
Like many others who became extras in the film about an unwittingly offensive TV journalist from Central Asia, Borat Sagdiyev, travelling through the United States, villagers feel they were cheated.
"We want to sue them. They made the world laugh at us," said Marin Marcel, 34, a Roma Gypsy, who with his neighbours carves out an income by working in local quarries and picking forest fruit. "They taped us without paying us money."
Behind him, a potholed asphalt road curves along bare hills and old women carry bundles of firewood, dodging large trucks, horse-drawn carts and cows. Lining the road are tiny houses draped in vines; some lack running water.
The Roma villagers said the film, which portrays Kazakhstan as a nation of horse urine-drinking misogynists, can only increase discrimination they face in Romania and damage the country's image abroad.
Western observers criticise the Balkan state due to join the European Union next year for doing little to bring its large Roma population from the margins of society where they struggle to find jobs and rarely send their children to school.
"We have a bad image. They don't want us anywhere," said Luca Ionel, 30, referring to recent decisions by some Western European Governments to limit the access of Romanians to their labour markets.
"And here in Romania, we are Gypsies, so when they built a bottled water factory in our area, they didn't let us work there."
Some Glod villagers said they were paid roughly US$5-US$7 ($7.70-$10.75) for a day's work as extras during the filming of the movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
To the local authorities, the movie represents bad publicity. "Those film-makers are crooks," said Petre Buzea, deputy mayor of a group of villages, including Glod. "They were looking for bad things to show.
"But my dream is for our area to become a tourist attraction. We have already heard from investors who want to build ski lifts and we are getting cash from the EU."
- Reuters
