Chaille Stovall

The reporters in the front row were caught off guard when Chaille Stovall stuck his head out from underneath a table at the Miami restaurant and thrust a microphone into Senator John McCain’s face. “Excuse me, Senator,” Chaille said in his high-pitched voice - high-pitched even for a 10-year-old. “Why should kids be interested in politics?”

To the dismay of the hundreds of campaign reporters crammed into the Versailles Restaurant in March 2000, Chaille (pronounced shally) scooped up 7 of the 10 minutes allotted to them. Mr. McCain fielded just a few questions from others before being ushered away.

Mr. McCain was one of many candidates, candidates’ family members and journalists tracked down by Chaille and his camera crew - including Zac Skipp, then 11, and Elizabeth Farrell, 10 - while they filmed Party Animals, an hour-long documentary about the 2000 presidential election that will have its premiere Nov. 5 on HBO.

Party Animals is no beginning effort. Chaille, now 12 and in the sixth grade in Coral Gables, Fla., is already a veteran filmmaker, having begun his first documentary at the ripe age of 7. And next Spring, he is scheduled to direct a $2 million feature for Emmett/Furla Films, “Camp Grizzly,” starring Dan Haggerty of “Grizzly Adams” fame, which would make him the youngest Hollywood feature film director.

For Party Animals, which took Chaille more than two years to complete, he traveled around the country to the early primaries and attended both national conventions, asking how politics was relevant to young people’s lives.

Chaille’s wry commentary about the election process is interspersed with the interviews, which can be both tough and comic. Meeting Florida Governor Jeb Bush, he asks, “Are you jealous of your brother?” Christine Todd Whitman, then governor of New Jersey, is asked why there aren’t more women in the top levels of government. Other candidates are asked to explain the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

At the age of 6, Chaille, who was having trouble organizing himself or getting dressed for school, was found to have attention deficit disorder. “His neurologist recommended that he take up golf or fencing, something that had many steps in order to produce a final product and keep him focused,” said Colleen Stovall, his mother.

Several weeks after watching an uncle perform in “The Nutcracker,” Chaille enrolled in the Miami City Ballet School. A close family friend told him that all male ballet dancers were destined to be gay.

Chaille, who at first had no idea what that meant, decided to find out if it was true. Wearing ballet gear on the street, he observed other children’s reactions and later interviewed basketball players, psychologists and other dancers. Using a borrowed JVC High-8 video camera, he documented his research.

The result, Boys in Tights, won first prize at the Miami Children’s Film Festival in 1998.

On awards night, Dolores Morris, a vice president at HBO Family, offered the 8- year-old Chaille a three-year contract.

Chaille launched into his next project after seeing a TV evangelist say that all who did not embrace Jesus would go to hell. Chaille, wondering about the fate of his Jewish and Muslim friends, began a film quest to find God. He interviewed school friends, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Dalai Lama for the 20-minute documentary Looking for God, which was shown on HBO Family and garnered the $2,500 first prize at the 1999 National Children’s Film Festival.

Now Chaille is at work on his iMac at his Miami home, editing his next project for HBO, which also has a religious theme. In July, Chaille and his crew flew off to India to meet the teenage Karmapa Lama, a high- ranking member of the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, and other young Tibetan monks. The Karmapa Lama fled Tibet in 2000, at the age of 15, and made a dangerous trip through the Himalayas to reach India. Soon after, the Chinese government arrested his parents.

“He looked like a kid who just wanted to have fun,” Chaille said. “Even though he is a very high religious leader, he misses his home in Tibet and his family.”

Party Animals grew out of Chaille’s dissatisfaction with the early presidential debates in the fall of 1999. Watching them, he was troubled – something seemed wrong with the process. “Just a bunch of old people wearing makeup” was his first thought, he said. “They never seemed to answer the questions correctly and would go to fake issues such as flag burning and patriotism, issues that everyone agrees on and are not worth debating.”

That October, he pitched HBO on the idea of doing a documentary about the campaign.

For months, Chaille was denied access to the campaign’s stars. He hounded different candidates’ headquarters, calling 10 to 12 times a week. “No one believed that a 10- year-old kid was making a documentary for HBO,” he said.

“My calls were not returned,” he continued. “If someone did call, their response was, `And how old are you?’” His first big break came when the office of the Texas governor and Republican candidate George W. Bush agreed to a sit-down interview.

“As a mom, you’re always impressed when you see other parents supporting their children and helping them realize their dream,” said Karen P. Hughes, counselor to President Bush. “It was clear that Chaille was making the decisions on how to conduct the interview. Both the president and I were very impressed.”

Soon after his meeting with Mr. Bush in Austin, Tex., Chaille got interviews with Al Gore, Alan Keyes, Elizabeth Dole, Bill Bradley and other candidates.

But Chaille was not satisfied with the opinions of candidates and television journalists. “Kids are out of the political loop,” he said, and he wanted to bring them in.

During the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, Chaille and his crew attended an MTV “Rock the Vote” event at the House of Blues. He met Wilmer Valderrama, a star of “That 70’s Show,” a Fox sitcom popular with teenagers, who was exhorting young people to become more politically active. Chaille asked him point-blank, “Do you know who your local congressman is?”

The actor did not. Within minutes, Democratic press aides evicted Chaille and his crew.

AT the Republican convention, Chaille ran into a young boy sporting pink hair and an earring. “Do you know the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?” Chaille asked. The boy’s retort, “I don’t care,” seemed to reflect the views of many young people.

“Most voters don’t know who their congressmen and senators are, don’t care and aren’t familiar with the issues,” Chaille said.

No less experienced an interviewer than Larry King, himself one of Chaille’s subjects, praised the young filmmaker’s approach. “I loved his whole attitude, his aggressiveness,” Mr. King said. “He came right up to me and said, `I’m a young kid, but I want to be like you, I want to do interviews.’”

Mr. King added: “When I was growing up in Brooklyn, I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. Chaille reminded me of my own early childhood when I practiced in front of a mirror broadcasting Dodger games. The kid is very professional and handles himself well. I don’t know if he’ll become a broadcaster, but whatever he chooses, he’ll succeed. He’s got half the battle licked: he goes to the hunt. The odds are, eventually, he’ll catch the fox and win big time.”