Borat vs. Murat

» 4 comments

There is a scene in the movie “Borat” when the hapless crew is running out of money. His producer tells them they will need to get more money from Kazakhstan. Now this was a scene that I found unintentionally hilarious. I found it hilarious because there should only be such a thing as a government willing to pay a journalist to make a documentary on America.

I work with real-life documentarians who visit the United States, but they come here at the expense of the American taxpayer through the U.S. Department of State. Only journalists from such wealthy countries as Japan usually make it here otherwise. However, as with so many government programs these days, the program has struggled with shrinking budgets and rising costs. At the same time, foreign journalists seem more eager than ever to come to America to film stories that can help their countries find solutions to their problems as well as to help their audiences learn more about America. That brings me to Murat Umarov.

Murat is a television journalist from the Central Asian country of Tajikistan. He is in America and works now for a small poorly funded private press agency called “Asia Plus.” He has also worked for the Tajik state TV channel, “Khovar“. Murat has spoken to me with great eagerness about how he wants to travel around America and film stories about it for his predominantly Muslim country of seven million people. Indeed, Tajikistan is growing in importance to the United States; per the U.S. State Deparment: “The two countries now have a broad-based relationship, cooperating in such areas as counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, and regional growth and stability.” This summer, the State Department reaffirmed its commitment to providing aid to Tajikstan. It makes sense for the two countries to understand each other.

Murat could not be more unlike Borat. He is an urbane and formal man who lived in Turkey and enjoys learning languages. He is already learning English very quickly. We met one evening in a bar with many beer taps and I watched as he put his reading glasses on and examined the heads of the beer taps to admire the artwork. Murat is like many foreign journalists I meet in terms of what he wants to see in America — New York, American Indians, etc. I’ve tried telling him that he really needs to move beyond such clichés. I tell him about places in America like Vermont, Austin, New Mexico, Philadelphia, and others that he knows little about. He is a little overwhelmed by how much there is to know, but he is eager to know it all.

While I have this discussion with Murat I can’t help but grow a little depressed. Murat expects to finance his travels across America with grant money. I know all too well how difficult it is to find funds for such a venture. The simple truth is there is no foundation that funds documentaries to help people overseas better understand and appreciate America. There are numerous funding sources for American producers who want to film a project about a foreign society for an American audience, but not the other way around. I know because I have been down this road many times. The same week I spoke with Murat I received a call from a Russian documentary film maker and bicycle adventurer who is eager to cycle in Alaska and on the west coast and film it for a Russian audience. He’s still looking for financial help. I tried getting funding for Murat through the State Department, but there was none available and nobody that I spoke with had any idea as to where he could get any.

Sasha Baron Cohen had a budget of $18,000,000 to spoof a Central Asian journalist’s travails in America and grossed $130,000,000. When I produce a 22 minute long program for the State Department I am lucky if I can get $30,000 and it will gross nothing. The results, however, are a priceless opportunity to show people sides of American life that get lost in the pop culture version of America that people overseas are exposed to. It’s time for those who care about America, especially those who produce documentaries, to turn their talents to making it possible for private sector initiatives to educate and inform overseas audiences about who we really are as a people. We speak a great deal in this country about the need for people to not always rely on our government. We should not be relying on the American government to do the job of telling our country’s story.

Mitchell Polman has worked as a producer on State Department sponsored media projects. He frequently writes about public diplomacy issues. Mitchell has studied international affairs and specialized in Russian and East European relations. Additional articles by Mitchell may be found at USCPublicDiplomacy.com and UnderstandingGov.org.

Follow us on Twitter.

Sign up for Mediaite's daily newsletter.

filed under

Asia Plus, Borat, Documentary Filmmaking, Khovar, Mitchell Polman, Tajikstan, U.S. State Department

share this post

• Facebook User

  This is a JUMBO-SIZED HINT to charitable foundations . . . there’s a place for private funding in this kind of media diplomacy and it could have huge long-term effects in terms of improving attitudes about the U.S. overseas.

• diplomat

  This seems to be made to order for a major foundation but of course it doesn’t work like that. Foundations, big ones anyway, insist on all sorts of paperwork, grant applications, matching contributions etc. and then they generally only fund people or NGOs that they have funded in the past. The only way this and other foreign journalists will ever get funding to do useful reporting from the US for their home audiences is for someone creative to just step up and write a check. In the long run, of course, since this is so much in the US interest, Congress should set aside some funds in the International Affairs or Foreign Operations account for just this sort of public diplomacy.

• just_this_moment

  As someone who benefitted directly from the USIS generosity in the past, and in a galaxy far, far away, I must say that the opinionmakers/filmmakers in places with obvious US interests (i.e. Central Asia) stretch this precious dollar immensely: I made a 54″ film for $5,000 (the history of American jazz in Uzbekistan), with best video technology available at the time there. Says good things about America, people like it, shows the characters who persevered against all odds. It should be somewhere in the USIS’s vault these days, or so I hope.

  More on the subject: it takes a visionary to privately fund an honest documentary/TV program (in example) in times when the scandalous and the scabrous make so much noise and money. I know for a fact that given a choice, the American people would love to see a well-made, artful film about themselves that would entertain by means other than making them cringe. It would be fun to see some of those made in the US by a sharp foreigner who can see the big picture: so Murat – stick it to Borat!

• yastreb67

  The preceding comments are all on the mark. Funding a foreign videojournalist like like Tadjikistan’s Murat Umarov to make a documentary about the US makes eminent good sense. Bang for the buck. Virtually guaranteed placement on home country TV. USIA discovered this years ago, and gradually came to use this tool to great effect. Unfortunately, in the year 2009 USIA no longer exists, We are left instead with the State Department’s Public Diplomacy (PD) efforts, where such subsidized foreign coverage, I suspect, would ring alarm bells galore for funding gatekeepers.. The bulk of PD money goes to safe, traditional programs that have lots of vocal adherents in Washington. (read academic exchanges) or to State Department-controlled new age Internet efforts to interact with young people overseas. The common element in both: control of the program or product. Thus, no bureaucratic risk–but also limited impact. Funding a Murat Umarov to make a documentary about this country requires a certain amount of bureaucratic courage. Almost certainly there would be some “warts,” as we used to refer to negative elements, but in my 40-year career in USIA, I always found that what emerged from foreign documentarians was a journalistic picture of America that was overhwelmingly accurate and credible–and that achieved placement on the home country’s mass media. As Washington policymakers agonize over Tadjikistan’s next moves re US supply-basing rights, a TV program on America would be a bargain!