Joshua Rivera. American born, East Los Angeles, California, 1988. A lifelong creative and artist, he began making films in childhood on Mini Dv's and graduated from The Academy of Arts University of San Francisco in 2011. Rivera has since created a wide range of independent works ranging from scripts, poetry, music and films. He makes his films with extremely scaled down crews and "NO" budgets. Rivera has also created all of his films' trailers, and posters.

His latest film "Deformelody: An American Nightmare" has been coined, "The lowest budget independent feature film of all time", made with a budget of $4,000 and a 2 person crew that included his camerawoman and himself. Rivera wrote, starred, directed and edited the film among countless other roles during filming and post production.

"Deformelody: An American Nightmare" had its World Premiere as part of the 27th annual Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival at Regal LA Live where it was awarded Best Independent Film and People's Choice Award. It had its South American Premiere at Etreum Horror Film Festival where Rivera was awarded Best Actor for his leading performance. His film had its European Premiere in London as part of the 33rd annual Raindance Film Festival. It was personally chosen by Raindance Film Festival and BIFA founder Elliot Grove to be the opening night horror feature of its first ever dedicated horror strand.

As of 2025, he is writing his debut novel "Particles of History" and continues to work as a freelance creative. Rivera is one of the most fiercely independent and spirited filmmakers of his generation.

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Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival 2025

Shaun Weiss, Caroline Mitchell, and Joshua Rivera in Deformelody: An American Nightmare (2025)

John K. Moeslein, Joshua Rivera, and Kelly Taylor Hancock in All Things Go (2015)

Joshua Rivera, David Gironda Jr., Domingo Salazar, Daniel Gonzales, and Nicholas Crumpton in The Century Club (2014)

Joshua Rivera(XIV)

Joshua Rivera(XIV)

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