[Archive 2006-07-03] Full-length open source movie ‘Boy Who Never Slept’ is released online

Historical archive — originally published 2006-07-03. This report records what was known on that date. It is not current news; subsequent events may have changed the situation. Wikinews closed in May 2026.

The movie is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license; this allows people to use, edit, or share the movie in any way (except commercially) as long as they credit the creators.

All of the raw unedited footage, including audio files, is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license; as long as the creators are credited, users can do whatever they want with the files privately or commercially.

The open source movie and original files are available for free download or streaming from a variety of sources, including direct downloading from the Internet Movie Archives, video distribution sites like Google video and Veoh, via file sharing networks like BitTorrent, and more. The full list is found on the official movie website.

The film centers on the life of an insomniac writer who meets a teenage girl online, and a friendship that grows into an unlikely love story wrapped in harsh reality. The movie deals with various issues, including the romanticization of love, age-related issues in relationships, like statutory rape (he's 23, and she's 16), and the idea of love in the online realm.

Rothman, a writer, amateur filmmaker and web designer, lives in the Los Angeles Area. He wrote, directed and produced the movie with his partner, A. Brown. Producing the movie for $200 while they were in college, they used friends as actors and later sold the camera on eBay to recoup the expense.

The movie is unrated; it explores adult themes and contains graphic language and brief nudity.

Source and licence

Text adapted from Full-length open source movie ‘Boy Who Never Slept’ is released online by Wikinews contributors under CC BY 2.5. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. Contributor history.