Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Bornieo: Fully Loaded

Which is probably not the first time hollywood producers have done that!

Todd Phillips' first movie as a director was a documentary called Frat House which took a look into frat pledging. He's since directed Old School and School for Scoundrels.

He and his co-director thought they were being clever by waiting until everybody was well lubed before getting them to sign the releases. But they learned their lesson when HBO Films (which had commissioned the documentary) refused to air it because of this.

There is actually a fair amount of latitude for documentaries in their ability to present people against their wills (though most distribution companies want the releases as a CYA measure) but the problem with Borat is that it is a work of fiction, even if it contains unscripted elements.