亚历克斯-里维拉 电影制作人和媒体艺术家

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Alex Rivera
Filmmaker and Media Artist | Class of 2021
Exploring issues of migration, globalization, and technology with an activist orientation.


Portrait of Alex Rivera

Title
Filmmaker and Media Artist
Location
Pasadena, California
Age
48 at time of award
Area of Focus
Moving Image
Website
alexrivera.com
Social
Facebook
Twitter
Published September 28, 2021
ABOUT ALEX'S WORK
Alex Rivera is a filmmaker and media artist exploring issues around migration to the United States, including exploitative labor practices, surveillance technologies, and immigration policy. In feature-length and short films, documentaries, music videos, and multimedia installations, Rivera straddles traditional forms of documentary and narrative drama and crafts incisive critiques of socioeconomic injustices grounded in an activist orientation.

Early in his career, Rivera wrote and directed a series of documentary shorts that situate immigrants’ lives within the larger system of global capitalism. The Sixth Section (2003) blends animation, interviews, and cinéma vérité to tell the story of a group of Mexican immigrants working in the United States who form an association to fund infrastructure projects in their native village. In The Border Trilogy (2003), Rivera presents three different portraits of borders: a separated family sharing a picnic across a border fence; shipping containers amassed in New Jersey; and technological surveillance of the U.S.-Mexico border. The vignettes juxtapose the harsh treatment of people and the free and massive movement of goods across borders. These works and others culminate in Rivera’s first feature-length narrative film, Sleep Dealer (2008), a science fiction thriller set in a near future. America’s insatiable appetite for low-wage labor is fulfilled by workers in Mexico who control robots in U.S. factories and farms via technology implanted in their bodies. As in many of his other works, Rivera’s vision of the future is not without optimism, as his characters use this same technology in acts of resistance. Rivera’s more recent works focus on U.S. immigration policy and the new generation of activists working to change it. He has collaborated with advocacy groups such as the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, with whom he created music videos to document and amplify the historic immigrant rights movement that flourished between 2010 and 2012.

His latest project is a collaboration with his partner, documentary filmmaker Cristina Ibarra, entitled The Infiltrators (2019). The film is based on events at an ICE detention center in 2012, when two undocumented young activists presented themselves for arrest and incarceration at a Florida facility. The activists educate detainees about their rights and organize a campaign of legal and public pressure to stop deportations. Rivera and Ibarra create a masterful technical hybrid of documentary and scripted storytelling, combining interviews and footage of the real-life participants with reenactments, performed by professional actors, of scenes within the detention center. The film is both inventive in its formal elements and an unprecedented portrayal of the conditions within ICE facilities. Rivera demonstrates the ability of art, and film in particular, to contribute powerfully to conversations about immigration policy and citizenship in the United States.

BIOGRAPHY
Alex Rivera received a BA (1995) from Hampshire College. His additional works include the installation LowDrone (2005) and the short films Why Cybraceros? (1997) and Papapapá (1995). He was a distinguished lecturer in the Department of Media Studies at Queen’s College in 2018.



亚历克斯-里维拉
电影制作人和媒体艺术家 | 2021级
探讨移民、全球化和技术等问题，具有积极的导向性。


亚历克斯-里维拉的画像

标题
电影制片人和媒体艺术家
地点
帕萨迪纳，加利福尼亚
年龄
获奖时为48岁
关注领域
活动影像
网站
alexrivera.com
社会
脸书
推特
发表于2021年9月28日
关于亚历克斯的工作
亚历克斯-里维拉是一位电影制片人和媒体艺术家，探索围绕移民美国的问题，包括剥削性劳动实践、监控技术和移民政策。在长片和短片、纪录片、音乐视频和多媒体装置中，里维拉跨越了传统的纪录片和叙事剧的形式，对社会经济的不公正进行了精辟的批评，并以行动主义为基础。

在他职业生涯的早期，里维拉创作并导演了一系列记录短片，将移民的生活置于全球资本主义的大系统中。第六部分》（2003年）融合了动画、采访和电影实录，讲述了一群在美国工作的墨西哥移民组成一个协会，为其家乡的基础设施项目提供资金的故事。在《边境三部曲》（2003年）中，里维拉展示了三种不同的边境肖像：一个分离的家庭跨越边境围栏共享野餐；在新泽西州堆积的运输集装箱；以及对美国-墨西哥边境的技术监控。这些小插曲将人的严酷待遇和货物的自由和大规模越境流动并列在一起。这些作品和其他作品在里维拉的第一部长篇叙事电影《睡眠经销商》（2008年）中达到高潮，这是一部设定在近未来的科幻惊悚片。美国对低工资劳动力贪得无厌的胃口，由墨西哥工人通过植入他们体内的技术控制美国工厂和农场的机器人来实现。正如他的许多其他作品一样，里维拉对未来的看法并非不乐观，因为他的人物在抵抗行动中使用了这种相同的技术。里维拉最近的作品集中在美国的移民政策和新一代的活动家致力于改变它。他曾与全国日工组织网络等宣传团体合作，与他们一起创作音乐视频，记录和放大2010年至2012年期间蓬勃发展的历史性移民权利运动。

他的最新项目是与他的合作伙伴、纪录片导演克里斯蒂娜-伊巴拉合作，名为《渗透者》（2019）。这部电影是根据2012年ICE拘留中心的事件改编的，当时两名无证青年活动家在佛罗里达州的一个设施中提出自己要逮捕和监禁。这些活动家对被拘留者进行了有关其权利的教育，并组织了一场法律和公众压力的运动，以阻止驱逐出境。里维拉和伊巴拉在技术上创造了一个纪录片和剧本故事的混合体，将采访和现实生活中的参与者的镜头与专业演员表演的拘留中心内的场景相结合。这部影片在形式元素上具有创造性，同时也是对ICE设施内条件的前所未有的描述。里维拉展示了艺术的能力，特别是电影，能够有力地促进关于美国移民政策和公民身份的对话。

个人简历
亚历克斯-里维拉获得了汉普郡学院的学士学位（1995）。他的其他作品包括装置作品LowDrone（2005）和短片Why Cybraceros？(1997)和Papapapá (1995)。2018年，他是皇后学院媒体研究系的杰出讲师。