Traders' Dreams

Where can you buy moose-poop earrings, hand-crafted Mexican pottery, or a homemade mind-reading machine? On eBay, of course! Traders' Dreams captures the zeitgeist of the famed online trading auction site (which in 2007 boasted 64 million active users and sold $60 billion worth of goods) through the stories of a handful of people. Laid-off Konrad Thrum wants to start an Internet trading business in a small town in Germany, but even though he's a graduate of eBay University, no one is bidding on the Mrs. Santa Claus outfit or the Saxon gift baskets he has posted online. Jim “Griff” Griffith, Dean of eBay University and host of a call-in eBay radio show, champions his employer as a great equalizer—reminding viewers that all one needs in order to sell something is a computer and an Internet connection. Mexican potters have been relying on an American named Larry Deming to sell their goods on eBay, but they now want to skip the middleman and sell “directly from potter to the gringo.” Meanwhile, Jack Ma, founder of an online trading company named Alibaba.com, which competes with eBay in China, is trying to corner the Asian market. An impressionistic documentary portrait of eBay that deftly weaves together multiple narrative threads while also incorporating contextual information, filmmakers Marcus Vetter and Stefan Tolz's Traders' Dreams captures the highs and lows (as well as the ironies and absurdities) of eBay's global business. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (J. Wadland)