Alex Rivera's Riveting Sleep Dealer Wakes Up Audiences to the Future

Last week's challenges over the swine flu brought into plain view the need to shift policy towards more rational approaches to bilateral relations between the U.S. and Mexico that seek to benefit citizens rather than punish them. It felt like a start to a new era, and the fresh air is welcome.

Moving forward, the experience can act as a catalyst to ask ourselves how we intend to shape the future we share together as neighboring countries, and a global citizens tied very closely to the success of each other.

I have advocated with my work for greater exchange and connecting through media and the creative arts, so that we can be ruled by understanding rather than ignorant panic.

Sleep Dealer offers us all a chance to ask some questions about how we want to see the future shape up, and who we are as a global community. How will our work be defined in the future, how will immigration shift in the future.

What is so nail biting about Alex Rivera's film is that he reveals the complexity of the subject - and offers the audience a chance to ponder, to weight the pluses and drawbacks of a remote worker force.

I value films that ask us the questions before we get there so that we can ask ourselves if this is the way we want our future. So timely is Alex's film, its captures the challenges not just the future stresses but those on the cusp today.

Consider that today commanders can engage in battle while sitting in a bunker on a computer in some wooded forest. Or consider that right now the border is watched over by surveillance teams behind computers in other parts of the country.

Below are several interviews and links to Sleep Dealer. Learn more about Alex Rivera's work. Check out the Sixth Section. Its inspiring to see Alex's development as a filmmaker and to witness the fluidity between doc and feature films. Maybe that's an interview for another day!

Check out this great audio interview with Alex from the New York Times that really explains concisely the premise of the film, and you can get a sense of the film's beautiful cinematography.