Alex Rivera

Alex Rivera (born New York City, 1973) is an American film maker, best known for his films about labor, immigration, and politics.

Rivera was born in 1973 in New York City, New York. His father is a Peruvian immigrant and his mother is an American citizen. Growing up as a bicultural youth in New Jersey, he took an interest in the fields of film, digital media, and science fiction. He is well known for his work Sleep Dealer, which premiered in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. He was awarded the Creative Capital Moving Image Award, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

Rivera studied political science and media theory at Hampshire College, graduating in 1995. He is also a New York-based digital media artist and filmmaker. Due to his knowledge and background in cinematography, his work address concerns of the Latino community concentrating on political issues such as migration, race and gender. In addition he uses language as a form of satire and humor to enhance the understanding Latinos contributions within various Anglo communities, much like the mockumentary A Day Without a Mexican. According to his website alexrivera.com, Rivera states that "over the past ten years he's been making work that illuminates two massive and parallel realities: the globalization of information through the internet, and the globalization of families, and communities, through mass migration."

Rivera, captures the process of migration and the social changes immigrants face in order to be considered a model United State citizen. The issues that are presented through his films impact the Latino communities because of the realism that is presented by characters in his films. They establish relationships with audiences, not only from the Latin/Latino community, but from all those who have experience dehumanization from their host countries. Rivera wants his viewers to understand that the "American Dream, is five minutes into the future, where the relationship between technology and a variety of political issues where it is precisely through a visualization of the dehumanization of migrants through technology that the film engages with their humanization."

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