SLEEP DEALER
The Story:
Set in the near future, Memo (Luis Fernando Peña), a young man in an arid Mexican village that was ruined several years ago when a water company dammed up the river. In this world, private companies control the water and charge ridiculous prices for it, protected and enabled by the U.S. government. Also in this world, the Internet has expanded to such a degree that you can have nodes implanted into your arms and neck and plug directly into the Information Superhighway. Once you're connected, you can upload your memories and broadcast or sell them a la YouTube.
This node-based Internet has other uses. The U.S. military no longer has to worry about pilots being killed on dangerous air missions, as they can stay safely at headquarters and control drone planes by connecting their nodes to the planes' computer systems. There's also the migrant labor situation I mentioned earlier. Small robots pick fruit and build skyscrapers, controlled by node-implanted Mexicans in warehouses in Tijuana. Memo wants a job like that so he can support his impoverished family, and it's while looking for work in Tijuana that he meets Luz (Leonor Varela), an aspiring journalist who sells her memories online to make ends meet. She's fascinated by Memo's story -- he suffered a personal tragedy when the U.S. military suspected him of being a terrorist -- and uploads her daily encounters with him onto the Net. One of her regular buyers is a rookie military pilot named Rudy (Jacob Vargas), who feels guilty for having killed an innocent bystander on a drone mission and wants to make amends.
Starring:
Luis Fernando Peña, Leonor Varela, Jacob Vargas, Giovanna Zacarías
Directed By:
Alex Rivera
Release:
2009
Watch the Trailer:
