Today at the Chicago International Film Festival: ‘Futures Past’

The Chicago International Film Festival continues through Oct. 27 at AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois.Jordan Melamed set out to document the last days of open outcry trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. What ensues is a 10-year sojourn of a son forsaking the path of his father. We are bystanders to alternately testy and touching exchanges between Jordan and his father Leo, renowned for currency futures and later electronic trading. The elder Melamed let down his own father by turning away from a law career. The younger Melamed quit as a commodity trader and chose filmmaking, with mixed success.Abstract finance and filial therapy reconcile for a reflexive exercise in transparent cinema, with the father critiquing his son’s technique. “Futures Past” recalls both “Floored,” James Allen Smith’s 2010 documentary about computer programs replacing Chicago Board of Trade pits, and “Tell Them Who You Are,” Mark Wexler’s 2005 personal documentary about his famous filmmaker father Haskell Wexler. 3:30 p.m. Oct. 18; 8:45 p.m. Oct. 24