Biography
Rick Alyea, born Richard Allan Robert Alyea in Vancouver, British Columbia on August 2, 1978, has lived there his entire life.
Embracing the digital filmmaking era in the mid-2000s, Rick shot his first feature film, Part of the Game, on a budget of just $15,000. The film competed at the 2004 Whistler Film Festival and was nominated for the Borsos Award for Best Canadian Film. In 2005, he created the short film Puck This, which was sold to the CBC. His second feature, That One Night, followed in 2007, screening at numerous festivals and achieving international sales on a modest $100,000 budget. Rick wrote, directed, and produced all these films.
As the film industry shifted in the late 2000s and indie financing became more challenging, Rick turned to entrepreneurship, opening his first furniture store in 2009. By 2018, he owned three stores specializing in modern outdoor furniture.
Financially secure and able to select meaningful projects, Rick was invited by longtime friend Zach Lipovsky to Executive Produce the feature film Freaks, co-written and co-directed with Adam B. Stein. Freaks was featured at TIFF in 2018 and was sold to Well Go USA just a day after its screening, securing one of the highest minimum guarantee deals in TIFF history for a Canadian film.
Freaks went on to win multiple film festival awards, including accolades for directors Zach and Adam, editor Sabrina Pitre, and Best Actor Bruce Dern.
Freaks is scheduled for theatrical release on August 23, 2019. Rick and his company, My Way Productions, have several projects currently in development.
