'Sleep Dealer' wakes to Sloan Award

"Sleep Dealer," director Alex Rivera's vision of a near future where humans perform tasks in a virtual environment, has captured the 2008 Sundance Film Festival's Alfred P. Sloan Prize.

The award comes with a $20,000 cash prize to the filmmaker, and is given by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a feature film "focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character."

The film was actually developed at the 2000 and 2001 Sundance Institute Feature Film Program labs, and won the the 2002 Sundance/NHK award and a 2004 Annenberg Feature Film Fellowship.

"Sleep Dealer" was selected "for its visionary and humane tale of a young man grappling with a technological future in which neural implants, telerobotics and ubiquitous computing serve a global economy rife with fundamental challenges and opportunities, and for its powerful and original storytelling and direction."

-- Jevon Phillips