Borat movie premieres at 2006 Toronto International Film Festival
April 24, 2008
(Sept’06) Borat’s movie film premiered to an overly enthusiastic audience during a special screening at The 2006 Toronto Film Festival. The movie films producers knew what they were doing when they choose Ryerson University campus for the premiere.The kids came out in force and Borat didn’t disappoint with his grand entrance to the red carpet. When it was all over - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan would become the most talked about film of the Toronto Festival. A couple months later, the Borat film would open to huge box office and become a pop cultural phenomena.
The premiere for Borat was one of the craziest scenes I have ever witnessed in the history of the Toronto Film Festival. While the theatrical premiere of Borat would still be two months after TIFF (when it shattered box office records) - you knew from this TIFF premiere something special was going on with this movie films. The hundreds of university kids goin’ nuts at the site of Borat said that. Before the 2006 festival, everybody would have bet that the site of Brad PItt at his TIFF premiere a few nights later would be the talked about scene at the Toronto festival. Borat beat him hands down to become THE buzz film of the 2006 fest. Very nice.
Yes, I was there. Yakshemash!
The funniest thing about this crazy Borat Premiere is that the movie projector showing the film broke down about a half an hour into the screening. I think the audience was thinking this was planned and had something to do with the movie (it didn’t) After Michael Moore (who was at the premiere) tryed for 20 minutes to fix the projector, the screening was cancelled and re-scheduled for two nights later (minus the horses) It was probably was the best thing that could ever have happened to the audience that night - as during the projector break down, Borat got up and did an impromptu Q&A. Call it a classic comedic moment in TIFF history.
“Yakshemash! In US of A, democracy is very different from Kazakhstan. In America, woman *can* vote, but horse - *cannot*!”
I caught this photo of borat in his carriage being pulled by his slave women. I am curious to know if he feeds them, and if they have access to utensils.