2020 Free Virtual Summer Film Series

Set against the last days of trading in the legendary Chicago pits, Futures Past captures the power struggle between filmmaker Jordan Melamed and his father, Leo Melamed, Holocaust survivor and kingpin of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. What begins as a documentary of the end of an era becomes a deeply personal exploration by a son returning to the “kill or be killed” world in which he was raised.

“One of the best films I’ve seen this year by far.” — Richard Roeper, Fox 32 Chicago

“It’s in his conversations and confrontations with Leo that Jordan strikes documentary-film gold. Both of them articulate, conflict-hungry men with personal scores to settle, which they proceed to chew over on camera for our delectation.” — Hollywood Report

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Director Jordan Melamed spent twelve years in the Chicago trading pits before attending the American Film Institute in Los Angeles where his thesis film, A Corner in Gold, won the Student Emmy for Drama from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and played at Kodak’s Emerging Filmmaker’s Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival. His first feature, Manic, starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, and Don Cheadle, and told the story of a violent adolescent placed in a juvenile psychiatric facility against his will. Manic premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, played at Toronto and film festivals worldwide, and was released theatrically by IFC Films. Showtime bought the rights to create a television series based on the film and Melamed co-wrote the pilot with Davis Entertainment producing. Melamed wrote and produced Twelve based on the best-selling novel by Nick McDonell. Directed by Joel Schumacher, with Chace Crawford, Emma Roberts, 50 Cent, and Ellen Barkin, Twelve premiered as the closing night film at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010 and was released worldwide by Hanover. Jordan is currently developing Fountain of Youth, a hybrid documentary/fiction project about beauty and aging set in South Miami Beach.