'If I See Borat, I Will Kill Him With My Own Hands'
GLOD, Romania, Nov. 17, 2006 — -- We went in search of "Borat" and were shooed away with brooms.
We tried getting to the bottom of arguably the most offensive movie in theaters this year, and people told us they'd like to kill the star, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Barring that, they're going to sue him!
The Romanian village of Glod stands in for Kazakhstan in the film, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
Glod literally means mud, and that's only some of what its people would like to sling at Cohen and his production company.
About 85 miles from Romania's capital, Bucharest, Glod looks like something out of the Middle Ages.
About 1,400 people live in Glod, and, by Western standards, one could say they are dirt poor.
The air is rancid, probably from the fires that burn on the outskirts of the village. The sight of old women carrying wood is common as is the manure that litters the narrow roads. The majority of villagers live on welfare benefits. Some try to make a living by selling their produce, such as fruits and mushrooms, while others sell woven baskets and slabs of stone.
"These people will do anything for money. Of course they were going to take part in [the film]," said the deputy mayor of the five-town region where the film was shot. "They thought they were earning money for not doing a lot of work."
Can you blame them? Being in a movie is fun. Unless, of course, you are portrayed as a rapist, hooker or prostitute, as some of the people in Glod were.
Many villagers were hesitant to talk with us; others refused to talk with us unless we paid them -- and we would not. They were especially hostile the second time we went to the village. There were a couple of screaming matches between our local fixers and the villagers who initially thought we were shooting a similar movie.
Our guide for the day was local councillor Nicolae Staicu, who told us the villagers had been approached by a lawyer, and surprise, ABC News has learned that a German lawyer named Michael Witte will be filing suit in the United States next week against Cohen and 20th Century Fox.
Witte made headlines six years ago when he helped win Holocaust victims compensation from the German government and industry. So maybe it's not all about the money.
