DIRECTOR JAMES BOLTON in his own words:

I started working on a story for Eban and Charley almost eight years ago. I was in my early 20's and had recently run into an old friend. I had known him as a teenager when I would get on a bus with a surfboard and ride for an hour and a half away from my small town on the east coast. We would surf in the afternoon and then we'd go hang out at this really cool alternative music club just off the beach in the evening. We were friends for a while before he told me he was gay and the reason he did was because he was very upset and needed to talk to a friend he could trust. I remember that he had had a boyfriend whom he was very much in love with but who'd broken off the relationship because of some pressure he was a feeling from friends telling him that it was inappropriate because of a substantial difference in their ages and because my friend was still a teen. We were both very young, but were able to understand the fear and its origin.

Several months later, when he told me they'd gotten back together, we again discussed the incredible fear his boyfriend must have experienced and the courage it took for him to follow his heart. My friend said he would have respected him whatever his decision but had always felt they were perfect for each other despite the difference in age. This boy was incredibly sensitive and intelligent and as a teen he had been involved in a program for gifted and talented kids at his high school, and I really felt he knew what he was involved in and he knew what he wanted. So years later, when he told me he was with the same guy and they'd been together since I'd last seen him, I began to reflect quite a bit and consider my own feelings on underage and intergenerational relationships and I thought it would be the great subject to explore in a feature film.

I think intergenerational relationships are generally misunderstood and therefore feared and demonized, especially ones involving very young people. I do think these kind of relationships do work when there is mutual love, respect, and understanding for each other. And it has always been the case that art that inspires me most is art that has great heart, provokes thought, and is brave. This is the kind of work I want to do, and I knew this was a subject I wanted to tackle, and here was a story I had to write. I had seen and read Death in Venice a few years earlier and had also read Nabokov's Lolita, and I thought it would be interesting to explore an actual relationship whereby the difference in age was not so great but was still substantial enough to be considered taboo. And I knew that for me, at fifteen, I had been thinking about sex for years and though I'd only had girlfriends, I was dying to have sex with other boys and even had very strong emotional/romantic attachments to a couple of men in my life who were older than me. And even with an incredibly brave friend, the first person to ever tell me he was gay, I was still dealing with my own fear that was born of the lies and fears of the small, southern town I grew up in. But, for that matter, it could have been any town. But I knew then as I know now that I was very clear on what I wanted and needed, still it took several more years to arrive. So, I decided to make the younger character fifteen years old.

Legal age of consent varies from state to state in the U.S. and it's clearly a number that people can't agree on. What's considered legal in one state is considered very illegal in another and carries stiff penalties when prosecuted. But aside from this "magic number," the real issues are really never taken into consideration; issues of young sexuality such as the difference between boys and girls, among others, kids’ rights, and the varying rates at which people mature. I really feel it's time we progressed, and if any real understanding is to come of this matter it will start by engaging people in thought and discussion. It's time to move beyond these days of confusion, fear, and hysteria. A philosopher once said that "enlightment is not really obtained by simply seeing the light but by bringing the light to the darkness", and that was something I wanted to do with this film.

Finding the money to make Eban and Charley was not an easy task. I was able to get some meetings because I had directed a short which had opened the Berlin Film Festival when I was 20. But I encountered mountains of fear over the subject matter, with a few exceptions; some now very successful people welcomed the challenging material and did what they could to help me. Bruce Cohen and Gus Van Sant were very encouraging and that helped me to keep pushing forward. In fact, it was Gus who ultimately introduced me to my future producer, Chris Monlux. He was a music promoter who liked the script but didn't have access to the amount of money we would need to make it as a feature film, but said if he could find some money this was the film he wanted to help make. We stayed in touch during the next few years, and I called him one evening, very excited, as I had just seen "The Celebration" by Thomas Vinterberg. It was shot on digital video and worked both because of the incredibly good quality of digital video and because it was story and character driven, unlike most "Hollywood" films and I felt I had the same thing with Eban and Charley. Plus we could do it for much less money than I'd ever imagined because of the new, digital, handheld cameras. Clearly, the digital revolution was on its way and would put the power back in the hands of the true artists, just as technological advancements allowed for inexpensive home recording studios that revolutionized the music industry some years back by allowing artists to produce an album without costing a great deal. And to his credit, Chris understood immediately this was the perfect time and way to make this film.

Casting was difficult but no more difficult than I thought it would be. I considered several young actors, but in the back of my mind I always felt the young actor I had met painting in New York's Washington Square Park the previous summer would be perfect. He had little experience but he'd liked the script and kept calling me asking for a chance to read. We didn't have a lot of money (about $30,000.00 to be exact) to make this movie and flying in an actor to audition was simply impossible at our budget level. But he wanted the part so bad he was emailing nightly to see if we'd cast it and still asking for a chance to read. So I suggested he have a friend videotape him reading a few scenes and send that to me. That would be his audition. His on-tape reading was good and his passion for the role so strong and clear that Giovanni Andrade would play Charley. The part I always felt would be easier to cast was that of the older character but easy to cast it was not. I auditioned at least three times the number of actors I had for the role of Charley, but still no Eban. And we were just a few weeks away from our scheduled shoot date. Then it was with a stroke of luck that I finally found him. My producer was also the manager of a band called the Dandy Warhols. They'd allowed us to use their office space as a production office and one of the members of the band had a friend who wanted to be an extra in the movie. When he came in I knew immediately he had an interesting look that could work very well for the role. Plus, he could play guitar...and play it well. I read with him and that day, Brent Fellows went home with the part of Eban.

Eban and Charley is now complete, and I'm very proud of it. Making a film with such little money is very difficult and there is much compromise, but I feel I accomplished much of what I set out to do. It was not an easy road, but it was worth every minute of struggle. Eight years of struggle to be exact. And the actual shooting script I used was the one I'd written eight years earlier because I felt it was so pure and exact in its intention. So many people who watch the film tell me that it provoked them to consider or reconsider their own ideas on the issues involved with new, honest light and compassion. Many people tell me how happy they are to see a film that actually pushes some boundaries with regard to style and content but that's simply what I think cinema should do. And I'm proudest when people call the film or me "brave," but when a friend of many years reintroduced me to his companion of many years, at a screening not long ago, I was able to praise them for their own bravery which was my original inspiration.