Spanish with English subtitles

A film essay in tableaux, Futures Markets traces the connections between memory, public space, and the real estate bubbles that led to the international financial crisis.

Beginning with the Greek poet Simonides’ invention of the “memory palace” – in which memories are arranged in an imagined physical space – the film suggests that the recent flurry of credit-fueled property development has depleted not only national treasuries, but also the distinctive character of these nation’s cities and therefore their cultural memory too.

Futures Markets takes us inside the fluorescent-lit showrooms of real estate expos, where developers hawk shares in hotel and condo projects in places from Dubai to Miami. Outside, cars are crawling on endless stretches of anonymous highway whose “straight lines point in the direction of promises.” This is Spain, but it could be almost anywhere in the world.

About the Director
Mercedes Álvarez is a filmmaker. Her first feature, El cielo gira (2005), has been screened in over thirty countries and obtained the critics’ unanimous recognition and several international prizes such as the Tiger Award, Rótterdam; Cinéma du Réel, Paris; Infinity de Alba, Italy; and the Fipresci award at Bafici, Buenos Aires.

She has also directed the short film El viento africano (1997), and more recently, the cinematographic poem Cinco elementos para cualquier universo and the documentary Mercado de Futuros (2011). She obtained the Miradas Nuevas Award of the Nyon Festival, Vissions du Réel.