Borat’s Repentance
Got notified of this by a commenter on my post Borat is Good for Kazakhstan. A film maker, kzscreenwriter in Kazakhstan has made a film called Borat’s Repentance that traces what happens when the President of the Borat fan club comes to Kazakhstan to apologize and discovers that Kazakhstan is a civilized and developed country. It’s up on You Tube in 3 parts. I can only post the links because for some reason when I embedded the films from YouTube, my formatting got pretty ugly:
Borat’s Repentance Part I
Borat’s Repentance Part II
Borat’s Repentance Part III
The film is pretty well made even though the quality on You Tube is a bit low. The two main actors are great (Where did they find Americans?). Parts of the film feel a bit like a propaganda piece, showing off that Kazakhstan is very developed and featuring a stupid naive American. It is also pretty clearly an advertisement for Kuralai, a Kazakh designer, c.f. this event. But it does a pretty good job of mixing the jokes and the pro-Kazakhstan propaganda. And there are a few shots at Kazakhstan’s lack of development too. And it does hit on some of the rudeness one encounters here with our poor heroes being kicked out of stores, attacked by rabid children and ripped off by taxi drivers!
That being said, I think it’s good for Kazakhstan that filmmakers have the resources to make products and get them seen without having to go through official channels because frankly there aren’t a lot of movie production companies here or financial resources. So low-budget, self-produced is definitely the way to go and hopefully kzscreenwriter and others can find a way to make money at this. It just might bring about a renaissance of Kazakh films.
By the way, if kzscreenwriter is reading this, or any other film makers in Kazakhstan are interested, email me or leave a comment. I’d love to do interviews with you and/or publish something about film making in Kazakhstan.
Subscribe or Share
Culture
- Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
2011-12-05 - Apples, Sure. But THC is from Kazakhstan too?
2011-10-05 - Naked Man Pot
2011-09-23
- Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
Resources
- Oh, CNN
2012-07-21 - What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
2012-07-19 - Books for Kazakh Students
2011-11-06
- Oh, CNN
Politics
- Image
2011-07-28 - Sub Rosa Endorsement
2011-07-26 - The Naked Truth
2011-06-12
- Image
News
- KZBlog is going down
2013-09-10 - Oh, CNN
2012-07-21 - Repentence
2012-07-15
- KZBlog is going down
Fun
- What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
2012-07-19 - Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
2011-12-05 - House Hunters Bishkek
2011-12-02
- What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
Tourism
- Asian Games Torch
2011-01-12 - Wikitravel
2010-08-07 - ALZHIR, the Soviets and Democracy
2010-07-30
- Asian Games Torch
Life in KZ
- Photo Gallery: Almaty Subway
2011-12-07 - Healthcare and the Private Sector
2011-11-30 - Naked Man Pot
2011-09-23
- Photo Gallery: Almaty Subway
Hi, believe it or not, I just found this blog entry about our film, even though I come to kzblog.net fairly often. Just wanted to say thanks for the kind review of our little film.
I found you because I’ve been reading today that another Kazakh filmmaker is planning a reboot of our little film. Maybe you saw this?
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/kazakh-director-plans-borat-sequel/?partner=rss&emc=rss
I guess imitation is a form of flattery? Anyway, I wish they would leave Borat alone. I thought it was tired when we did the film in 2008.
Anyway, just wanted to give a late thank you.
Cheers!
kzscreenwriter
Happy to promote anything interesting going on in Kazakhstan. Overall the film was well done. I’ve always been curious whether the film was your idea or Kuralai’s or how it came to be, if you don’t mind sharing.
I did read about the new film and figured it was a rip-off of yours. I think you should sue them for some kind of payment. And yes, the Borat theme is so tired now. I don’t think many people worry about it anymore.
I was approached by the producer and director, who was hired by Kuralai to help make a film that she could take to the U.S. for the D.C. Fashion Week. They wanted to make an “answer” to Borat, to show people in the west that Borat wasn’t true. I wanted to do something different, but they were paying the bills, so we made this film.
My first idea was going to be more intrigue and comedy, involving the FBI and KNB and a super fan. It wasn’t great, but I think it would have been fun to make. But, they wanted to go more the route you saw in the youtube vid.
So, my rewritten idea was for a film that was under ten minutes, shot entirely like a Borat video (you don’t see the cameras, etc) but in the filmmaking process it kept getting expanded by the director. I wish I had hired someone to videotape the process, because it was absolutely nuts – and not in a good way.
Kuralai was great to work with – an interesting woman. I’ve been toying around with some other ideas for film, but full time work makes it hard.
By the way, not sure if you are familiar with the Kazakhstan English Language Theater, but you might be interested in what we do. http://www.kelt.biz and keltatyrau.wordpress.com.
Thanks!
kzscreenwriter
Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. Would have liked to have seen more comedy and less Kuralai is the most beautiful woman in the world. But glad to hear she was good to work with. I know of KELT, would love to see an Astana branch.
[…] in all, it sounds suspiciously like Borat’s Repentance, a film made by some Americans in 2008 about the president of Borat’s fan club also making a […]