Alex Rivera is a New York-based digital media artist and filmmaker. He was born in 1973 to a native of Peru and a native of New Jersey. Papapapa (1995) used the concept of virtual reality to describe the mental space his Peruvian father inhabits in his adopted home of New York. In his second short film, Why Cybraceros? (1997) Rivera imagined a future in which migrant farm workers could work in America, but never actually come to America, by controlling robotic workers over the internet. Sleep Dealer is his feature-length directorial debut.