‘Boy Who Never Slept’ is a full-length open source movie that was recently released online for free, along with its script, audio, and video source files. A hot topic in Linux and Open Source forums, ‘Boy Who Never Slept’ is quickly gaining a cult following. With thousands of viewers in the first two weeks and numerous downloads, “Boy Who Never Slept” is growing virally in the online arena, and has begun to spill over into mainstream media. The movie, trailer and source files combined have already received over half a million views, and this number continues to rise.

A sexy dramatic comedy, ‘Boy Who Never Slept’ 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. “Boy Who Never Slept” was produced with a shoestring budget of $200 by amateur filmmaker and web designer, Solomon Rothman.Rothman shot, starred in, and directed ‘Boy Who Never Slept with the intention of releasing it free online.

The full movie falls under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License, which allows people to use it in any way that is not commercial, as long as they credit the creators. The raw video footage, final footage, extras, audio files, and script were released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License, which gives people the right to use any part of the source files or script for their own private and commercial derivative works.

Concerning his decision to make the movie with no budget, Mr. Rothman says, “With the advent of the digital filmmaking revolution came the possibility of producing a movie with a null budget. I couldn’t let this opportunity to experiment pass, so I eagerly began researching film and video production with every spare second of my time. This grew into my first goal: to produce a movie with whatever resources I could obtain and to learn as much as possible in the process.”