Apparently being portrayed as Kazakhstan's top mechanic/abortionist in a hit feature film is not worth its weight in gold.

Residents of the isolated Romanian village that stood in for Borat Sagdiyev's hometown in the opening and closing minutes of the bogus Kazakh journalist's critically acclaimed mockumentary filed a $30 million-plus federal lawsuit Monday against 20th Century Fox and others responsible for bringing Borat to the big screen, claiming they had been told that they were being filmed for a downright serious documentary about poverty in Romania.

"Nothing could have been further from the truth," the suit, filed in Manhattan, stated on behalf of Glod residents Nicu Todorache and Spirea Ciorebea (said mechanic/abortionist), whose village is about 85 miles northwest of Bucharest. "The project was intended to portray the plaintiffs...and other villagers as rapists, abortionists, prostitutes, thieves, racists, bigots, simpletons and/or boors."

Tudorache, who appeared in the film with a rubber sex toy attached to his amputated arm, said he and his neighbors "participated in the film out of good faith."

"Life is very hard in Glod, and we appreciated the chance to tell our story. I can't believe that they lied to us like this," the 56-year-old Romanian told the Los Angeles Times. "We are in a desperate situation, and the filmmakers made it worse.

"Even if there is only a very small chance of getting justice, I want to go to court, because a wrong has been done to me and our whole community."

Gregg Brilliant, a spokesman for 20th Century Fox, denied that the project was ever presented to the villagers as a documentary, adding that everyone depicted in the film signed releases.

"We worked through the same Romanian film production company that was involved in Cold Mountain and actors and extras were hired from the village but also from other parts of Romania," Brilliant told the Times, which reported Monday that three suits were expected to be filed on behalf of the people of Glod, in New York, Florida and Frankfurt, Germany.

The villagers, the majority of whom are Roma gypsies, are also seeking either major changes to the beginning of Borat, starring British actor Sacha Baron Cohen as the title character, or an injunction against showing the movie—which has grossed about $90 million in the U.S. to date—in the States and Germany if Cohen, 20th Century Fox and the other filmmakers refuse to comply.

"Ridiculing them on ethnic grounds is simply not tolerable," New York attorney Edward Fagan, who has taken the helm of the international case, told the Times over the weekend.

"Mr. Cohen makes a great point about anti-Semitism in his film. But as Jews do not have horns, Roma are not rapists and prostitutes."

Echoing Cohen's recent sentiments about who he's actually targeting in the film—the people who actually think that a Kazakhstan where people drink horse urine and make gay people wear blue hats does exist—Brilliant maintained that the film was in no way trying to convince people that the characters onscreen did those things in real life.

"For anyone who has seen the film, it has a message of tolerance told through satire," he said. Plus, "there was a film crew, a full production, trucks, multiple cameras, a director giving them instruction, props, an [assistant director] yelling 'cut' and 'action.' This was not a guerrilla-style production masquerading as a documentary crew."

But not only did Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan make audiences chuckle, gasp and guffaw at the people of Glod, the people weren't paid very much for their efforts, either.

"We want to sue them," 34-year-old fruit picker and quarry worker Marin Marcel told the Scotsman newspaper last week. "They made the world laugh at us. They taped us without paying us money."

Brilliant said that the Romanian actors and extras were paid more than $4 a day, twice what their country's film office had suggested, and that the production donated $10,000 to the town after filming was completed.

According to a portion of the New York suit obtained by the Times, the plaintiffs are seeking $5 million for school and infrastructure improvements in Glod, $25 million in humanitarian aid and an unspecified amount to compensate the villagers, aka Borat's town rapist, mechanic and others.

Fagan said that he's hoping to "teach Hollywood a very expensive lesson."

"This case is not about money but about dignity," the attorney said. "The producers need to pay because they deprived the villagers of Glod of their essential right to choose. They are the only ones who had no idea what was going on in the film.

"Unlike in the U.S., where all participants signed legal agreements, it appears that it never crossed producers' minds to ask the Romanian participants to sign any agreement of consent nor give them the chance to protect themselves in any way...You can't just go to foreign countries and exploit unsuspecting people to cash in on their misery and not even pay them a fair wage."

Which, according to 20th Century Fox, is not the case here. But even if everyone was in agreement on whether release forms had been signed or not, it probably wouldn't stop people unhappy about how Borat makes them look from filing suit anyway.

For instance, two South Carolina college students sued 20th Century Fox and Borat's producers Nov. 9, claiming that crewmembers plied them with booze and then coerced them into signing waivers while drunk, after which they proceeded to engaged "in behavior they otherwise would not have engaged in." The fraternity brothers, who referred to themselves as John Does 1 and 2 in their complaint, also stated that they had been told the film was not going to screen in the U.S.

Seventy million dollars later…

An Alabama-based etiquette teacher filed a complaint last week, alleging that she had been told she was being filmed for a Belarus TV documentary. Plaintiff Cindy Streit wanted an investigation conducted into the methods that had been used to ensnare people in Borat's farcical web.

Perhaps shedding some light on how that whole release thing works, at least with the U.S. residents Borat comes into contact with during his travels, Rolling Stone reported in its Nov. 30 issue that Borat's crew would present unsuspecting subjects with vaguely worded waivers that omitted the actual name of the media outlet where the footage would air.

For the Borat segments on Da Ali G Show (where Cohen originated the character) and for the movie, the magazine said, interviewees were told that they were being filmed for a documentary intended for Kazakhstan television.

Director Christina Iliescu, a Romanian who works with Castel Films, the local production company that helped make Borat, told the Times that whenever she gave instructions, she informed the actors/extras that they were not playing themselves.

"Whenever I asked them to do something, I explicitly told them the film is not about them or their customs and that they are playing parts," Iliescu said. "On the other hand, I admit, that under the time pressure, maybe not all approximately 600 people who took part in the filming understood what it was about and how many of them let themselves get carried away by pure curiosity.

"What I can tell for sure is that those who accepted to play with us were relaxed and had fun."