sleep dealer

The near future. Like tomorrow. The world is divided by closed borders, but connected by a digital network that ties together people around the world. Memo Cruz lives with his parents and his brother in the small, dusty village of Santa Ana del Rio, in Mexico. Santa Ana is an isolated farming community, the kind of place that seems frozen in time -- except for the hi-tech, militarized dam that was built by a corporation, and now controls Santa Ana's water supply. Memo couldn't care less about Santa Ana. He loves technology, and dreams of leaving his small pueblo and finding work in the hi-tech factories in the big cities in the north.

For now though, Memo is trapped in Santa Ana del Rio. To escape, at night, in his room alone, Memo uses a homemade radio intercept to eavesdrop on conversations of people who, unlike him, have been able to leave their villages -- and who've made it to the big cities, where almost anything is possible. One night, while using his homemade radio, Memo stumbles across something he's never heard before the communications of the security forces that are constantly patrolling the area around his village, to protect the dam from 'Aqua-Terrorists.' Unknown to him, or his family, Memo is now under the crosshairs. Security agents at the water company's headquarters in the United States, have spotted Memo's radio intercept, and conclude that it's a threat. Memo is then forced to realize his dream of leaving Santa Ana in the worst possible way when his homemade radio - and his house - are destroyed in a reckless remote-control bombing.

Driven by feelings of guilt, and a need to earn money, Memo leaves his family and his pueblo to go north, find work, and help his family start again. He heads to the massive border city of Tijuana. On the way, Memo meets a young woman, sharp and beautiful, named Luz. Luz is an aspiring journalist who dreams of writing a story that might one day change the world. She's curious about Memo, and she asks him a few questions as they approach Tijuana.

As Memo arrives to Tijuana, City of the Future, we follow Luz. Alone in her apartment, Luz connects herself to the net, via implanted nodes in her body, and speaks. As she describes her day, the computer records visuals from her memories and the sound of her voice. She puts these recorded memories up for sale on the net -- a blog, straight from the brain. The next day, to Luz's surprise, someone, somewhere out there has bought her memory and has paid in advance for more. A strange and complex relationship is set in motion between Memo and Luz. She wants to learn more about him, to sell more memories to her anonymous client. But he is cautious about revealing the real reasons he's come to Tijuana. All Memo cares about is getting work that pays and to do it he needs to connect to the network too he needs nodes.

Luz knows a thing or two about technology. She helps Memo get his nodes so he can plug his body into the system, and get work. Memo is finally there in the hi-tech factories he'd only dreamed of. But it's not what he expected. The factories are bizarre and dangerous. Workers connect their nervous systems to the net to control robots that labor on the other side of the border, in the first world a world none of the workers will ever really see. The workers frequently toil until they collapse earning the factories the nickname 'sleep dealers.'As Memo works, Luz works too selling installments of his story to her mysterious reader. When the identity of Luz's reader is revealed, a chain of events is set in motion that will connect three strangers, change their lives and perhaps even change the world forever.

WINNER
Alfred P Sloan Feature Prize
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award
(Sundance 2008)

Amnesty International Film Prize
(Berlin 2008)

“The freshness and ingenuity of this techno-thriller should spark a cult following.” (Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter)