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Alex Rivera
Pronouns
He/him
Date and place of birth
b. 1973, New York, NY
Current location
New York, NY
Year(s) of residency and/or fellowship
2006, Collaborator

Alex Rivera is an award-winning filmmaker whose work explores themes of globalization, migration, and technology.

Rivera’s first feature film, Sleep Dealer, a cyberpunk thriller set on the U.S./Mexico border, won awards at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, and had a commercial theatrical release in the U.S, France, Japan, and other countries. In The New York Times A.O. Scott described Rivera as “a brilliant young director” and Variety named him one of “Ten Directors to Watch.”

Rivera’s second feature, The Infiltrators, won the NEXT: Audience Award and the Innovator Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The Infiltrators uses documentary and scripted forms to tell the true story of Dreamers who ‘infiltrate’ a detention center to get immigrants out. The Hollywood Reporter raved “watching it is a thrill” and The New Yorker Radio Hour called the film “extraordinary and important.” The Infiltrators is currently being developed by Blumhouse Television as a scripted series.

Alex Rivera is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Sundance Fellow, Creative Capital Grantee and was The Rothschild Lecturer at Harvard University. He studied at Hampshire College, lives in Los Angeles, and is an Associate Professor of Filmmaking Practice at ASU’s Sidney Poitier New American Film School.

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