The Circuit

In B. Ruby Rich's Sundance wrap, it's "Sleep Dealer" that rises to the top (though it's mentioned at the bottom):

But the feature film that captured my attention, hands down, was Sleep Dealer, a science fiction view of a dystopian future by first-time director Alex Rivera. It was my favourite kind of sci-fi: just enough into the future for things we recognise to have become grotesque, untenable, dangerous. On the US-Mexico border, new factories harvest human energy by connecting to nodes implanted in human workers. There are armed drones and cyber-memories, computer hackers and scary reality TV shows.

Rivera's film was the opposite of the big-money movies that made the headlines ($10m for Hamlet 2, for instance), but it didn't sit with the quiet narrative dramas, either. With two awards - for screenwriting, and for contribution to science - it may have a future. I hope so. It is films like Sleep Dealer that give hope for Sundance's future. Rivera revives the promise of an American independent cinema that can intervene in our world, imagine the worst, hope for the best - and entertain like mad along the way.

Full story here.

"Sleep Dealer" plays in Berlin next.