A big prize for "Sleep Dealer"
PARK CITY -- One Sundance award winner is already out of the bag: Alex Rivera's futuristic tale "Sleep Dealer" has received the Alfred P. Sloan Prize.
The award goes to a movie with a scientific or technological theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. It's presented by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The best part for the winner: A $20,000 cash prize. (At the Awards Night ceremony for a previous festival, actress-writer Guinevere Turner presented this award, commenting to the assembled filmmakers, "Dude, stick a robot in your movie - this is $20,000!")
"Sleep Dealer" is set in a future society where migrant Mexican workers do "virtual labor" in bordertown factories, plugged into machines that control robots in the United States - importing the labor without importing the workers.
The award goes to a movie with a scientific or technological theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. It's presented by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The best part for the winner: A $20,000 cash prize. (At the Awards Night ceremony for a previous festival, actress-writer Guinevere Turner presented this award, commenting to the assembled filmmakers, "Dude, stick a robot in your movie - this is $20,000!")
"Sleep Dealer" is set in a future society where migrant Mexican workers do "virtual labor" in bordertown factories, plugged into machines that control robots in the United States - importing the labor without importing the workers.
-- Sean P. Means
posted by Sean P. Means @ 7:43 PM |
1 Comments:
"Sleep Dealer" deserves praise. There are several important themes running through the movie. Some of these (water rights, exploitation of alien workers, misuse of the military) could be - and are- the subject matter for their own movies. However, the film makes its own statement about human values, against the backdrop of these ideas. Its message is transcendent.
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