Saturday, May 14, 2016, 8:30 pm
ALEX RIVERA’s SLEEP DEALER +
In his first feature, our long-time ally Alex (PapaPapa) Rivera oh-so-artfully turns speculative fiction into a terrifying critique of a paranoid future. This Sundance-winner spins a fantastic narrative on the dystopian outcomes of globalization, particularly the privatization of water and the place of immigrant labor in the neo-liberal economy. Rivera’s wildly imaginative fable is set in tomorrow’s fearfully militarized world, a technological work-camp marked by closed borders, virtual labor, and a worldwide cyber-network that joins minds and experiences. When a Mexican youth’s family is wiped out by a misguided drone, he must head North. But migrant workers cannot cross the new world border–it’s been sealed off! Instead, he ends up in a human/cyborg “virtual” factory on the frontier, where he connects his body to a robot in the US. Tragically marginalized upon its ‘08 release, Alex recently regained control of his potent parable, and immediately dispatched it to OC with his blessings.