Álvarez won a Tiger Award for The Sky Turns, a beautiful documentary elegy for the village she was born in. Here she utilises an equally measured style to portray the postmodern economy right before it crashed. The hero is a rag and bone man who prefers not to sell anything.
The Greek poet Simonides of Ceos is remembered for his fabulous memory and as the founder of mnemonics. In Futures Market, Simonides’ reflections constitute the backbone of the commentary-free shots, which - in a well-paced edit - reflect on the past, present and future.
The film shows an old house being divested of its valuable contents, which then end up at a second-hand market as a collection of random items. The footage of the trade in objects from the past alternates with futures trading. At the real estate exchange, men in suits sell houses that haven’t even been built yet and at the stock exchange, abstract numbers change owners during nervous phone calls. In the meantime, Simonides, timeless works of art and energetic market trader Jésus Castro comment on our increasingly hectic society.