Precariousness, uncertainty and disaffection in the face of the desire to achieve a tomorrow, at least, tangible and stable. At this existential crossroads, ‘Future Ruins’ grows and becomes stronger, a short documentary co-directed by Elvira Arbós, Francisco Armenteros, Ran Chen and Carolina Sánchez that leaves the millennial crisis behind to portray the new lost generation: the Z. The piece, a product of ECAM and a candidate for the Goya nomination for Best Documentary Short Film, delves into the complex present of a group of students from the Chaminade Residence Hall who play guessing games in the privacy of their rooms. who are they and what will become of them.

The mystery surrounding a time capsule hidden by other students in the past, waiting eternally to be found, serves as a pretext to give rise to a young, feminist and queer story, in turn impregnated with rebellion, sacred confessions and ephemeral vital considerations. All collected in a 30-minute tape that ends up being, de facto, a time capsule in itself; preserving within it the memories forged from hours and hours of recorded material. Conversations about politics, social classes, love, the future or one’s own identity weave a kind of shared memory that marks distances from the claims and struggles of parents and grandparents.

Now, the realities, and therefore the concerns and expectations, are different. “Do you know what the problem of the future will be? That right now the only ones who have children are the fascists”; “My problem is that I have no passion for anything”; “I think I would be less obsessed if my parents had more money.“; “Aren’t you afraid of moving to a place for work that is a dormitory city in which there is nothing of cultural interest? There is nothing, only people with no more interest than giving the crustless sandwich to their children.” Thus, a generational portrait is given, lacking in certainties and security that haunts the directors of ‘Future Ruins’ in the same way.

“We wanted to show the purest essence of what it means to be young.”

“When we imagined our future after university, which was getting closer and closer, there was no other scenario than uncertainty. We were young, but soon we were going to stop being so. We decided then that our film would talk about that feeling,” acknowledge Armenteros, Chen, Arbós and Sánchez, for whom this project became “a self-portrait.” That is, bringing face to face “the purest essence of what it means to be young. ” with the fear of ceasing to be one. The questions and answers that the protagonists give each other attest to this, as does the photograph that accompanies them, explaining immobile and attentive to detail the internal conflict that each one enjoys and suffers.

Images that capture the idiosyncrasy of each room through the decorative elements that compose them, the gestures of their inhabitants in their comfort zone; of the loss of self-expression when they become empty. “We opted for fixed and open shots that captured small fragments of the reality of these young people,” certify the authors of a piece available on Filmin after its international exhibition – at the Swiss festival Visions du Reel– and national – in the Seminci from Valladolid and L’Alternativa from Barcelona-. Now he seeks, before the most important awards in Spanish cinematography, give voice to young people of today that will be the ruins of tomorrow.