Search The Archive
“A compelling meditation on dreams that doubles as an exposé of how cheap those dreams have become, Futures Market is a wise and fulfilling film.” - Variety
Rotterdam Film Festival Tiger Award winner (for The Sky Turns, MIFF 05) Mercedes Álvarez returns with a visually exquisite and meticulously composed filmic essay on the life of objects, and the trivialisation of dreams turned into merchandise.
Beginning with and pivoting on the meditations of Greek poet Simonides on memory, Futures Market ponders past, present and future as it contrasts trade in things with trade in futures. It follows objects, physical and immaterial, from their beginnings to their ends: real-estate salesmen peddling properties that don't yet exist and stockbrokers frantically selling conceptual numbers through to the valued contents of a house as they end up in a trash & treasure market, ignored or - worse - stepped on.
These images are alternated with those of timeless artworks, Simonides' reflections and the insights of inexhaustible nonagenarian market trader Jésus Castro, a junk seller who refuses to sell, and in doing so they offer an elegant comment on commercialism versus spirituality, timely its exploration of the financial currents running through contemporary Europe.
D Mercedes Álvarez P Ignacio Benedeti, Xosé Zapata, Eva Serrats S Arturo Redín, Mercedes Álvarez WS Treeline Distribution L Spanish w/English subtitles TD 35mm/2011