What do you do when your country's most recognized representative is Borat Sagdiyiev, a culturally challenged reporter who is actually a persona created by Sacha Baron Cohen? Naturally, you pump millions of dollars into an epic film that depicts your country's heroic warrior culture.
Roman Vassilenko, press counselor for the Kazakh Embassy here in DC (and the man who Borat calls an "uzbek imposter") is promoting Nomad, which is now released in the United States. The movie, which the New York Times calls a "reasonably good example" of the American Western genre, is about "nomadic Kazakhs' hope for a leader who can unite their various tribes and drive out the invading Jungars."
Roman denies that this film is linked to the Borat craze:
*Some Western media have indeed sought to present Nomad as Kazakhstan’s response to *Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan *, a movie by a British comedian. The reality is that Nomad was conceived and was in production when few people even heard of Borat, and such assertions were a fruit of imagination of overly eager people looking for sensation. *
Anyhow, Roman's a good guy, and when you're one press attache against Borat, you gotta have some sympathy, so I'm plugging the movie (although I really loved the Borat film).
