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On a cold November evening, behind the unassuming door of a former jewellery box makers’ on Pentonville Road, an independent creative space is filling up with fashion model managers, cinema workers and engineering consultants. They’re here in search of romance; I’m here to find out what could possibly unite such an eclectic mix of singletons. Unlike regular dating events, attendees at Anomalous Space’s first-ever ‘Admit Two’ night are being paired off based on their film preferences. And those who know their Lynch from their La La Land might just walk out with a new soulmate.
‘Admit Two: Speed Dating for Film Lovers’, to give it its full title, is the brainchild of Raquel Braz, a 24-year-old music manager who clocked a gap in the market after encountering countless Hinge profiles name-checking A24 movies and indie cinemas. ‘Films are the perfect conversation starter,’ she tells Time Out. ‘Every first date I’ve been on includes the question: “What is your Letterboxd top four?”’
Frustrated with the popular movie app’s lack of user-to-user messaging – and conscious of friends’ growing fatigue with online dating – Braz devised an IRL speed-dating event where people share their favourite films beforehand to inspire appropriate meet-cutes. Co-organiser Tiffany Ho, 24, hopes it can stoke recovery from the ‘huge crush recession’ caused by a decline in face-to-face socialising. These carefully curated pairings are now unfolding on this icy Tuesday night in Islington.
The event space and photography studio – which has recently hosted Haim photo shoots, book launches, brand activations and techno DJ sets – feels conducive to the new event. The low-lit living room-style studio space boasts leather couches and foldable chairs flanked by billowing black curtains. The surrounding shelves, meanwhile, house vintage cameras, clapperboards, and replica Oscar statuettes (category: ‘sexiest male’). DJ MM’99 spins slow jams and ’80s pop hits. The MC, seemingly dressed as Benny Safdie in a brown suit, striped shirt and baseball cap, cracks jokes as he herds the 30-or-so romantic hopefuls into place.
Each patron tonight partakes in four ‘dates’, each of which comprises 12 minutes of one-on-one time. The couples are pre-matched based on the results of a questionnaire about their film tastes, of which the results are fascinating. Film bros who fawn over The Wolf of Wall Street and Fight Club are perceived by several patrons as a red flag, while a passion for Studio Ghibli movies is generally considered a good sign. The data otherwise reveals passions for psychedelic Italian horror movies (Suspiria), classic blockbusters (Star Wars), violent Korean thrillers (Oldboy) and cult documentaries (Paris is Burning). One attendee has even declared a passion for Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers ahead of time. Another has claimed that The Muppets Take Manhattan is ‘underrated’ – perhaps under the belief that this will be a good conversation starter.
They’ve either hit it off or he’s passionately defending a film she doesn’t like
As the match-ups unfold, I observe a refreshing lack of awkwardness as smiles, laughs, and passionate gesticulating commence all across the room. Frankly, I feel like I’m missing out.
More tentative participants turn to conversation-starting prompt cards – ‘What film defined your teenage years?’ reads one. ‘Best kiss scene in a movie?’ offers another. The gambit seems to work: after time has been called on the final date, I spot one couple lingering, legs akimbo, on a green leather couch. Another pair remain glued to their table at the back of the room in deep conversation. ‘They’ve either hit it off or he’s passionately defending a film she doesn’t like,’ notes one observer.
So, could movies really be the glue to bind these bachelors and bachelorettes? Many of the attendees think so.
‘I’ve done speed dating once before,’ says 25-year-old chef Yu An. ‘This was much better because the people mixed together really well, since we all like movies.’ He claims to have spent a large portion of the evening talking about Better Man – the Robbie Williams movie in which the British pop star is depicted as a monkey. ‘It’s such a stupid film, but so fun. I think it’s a good litmus test to see whether someone’s pretentious or not.’
Elsewhere, a 24-year-old freelance content creator (who wished to remain anonymous) admits he felt nervous ahead of time – but decided to turn up because ‘sometimes you’ve just got to do things for the plot’. Sparks flew for him tonight: ‘We were yabbering for half an hour about Anora and Uncut Gems. Film as a conversation point naturally leads onto other things like what you’re doing in your life, and so it’s been really entertaining, and a good energy.’
Melisa, 25, is an assistant director and producer originally from Turkey. She jokes that she came looking for love – and may (almost) have found it. ‘I wasn’t really expecting that I’d have a crush on someone. But we’d both watched Bugonia recently, and we spoke about Yorgos Lanthimos’s films – so that was a green flag. He was asking really smart questions about filmmaking, and I loved that he asked if I could take him to some sets I’m working on.’
And while Reading University marketing student Grace, 21, was more interested in friendship than romance before she arrived, she admits that she’s exchanged phone numbers, Instagrams, and even Letterboxd profiles by the end of the night. ‘It was nice to be in an environment of people who care about the arts,’ she says.
With the event wrapped up by half nine, there’s ample time left to catch a late-night screening at Screen on the Green – or perhaps even ‘Netflix and chill’. Instead, almost two-thirds of attendees spill out to nearby The Lexington, where the drinks flow until 2am. Ho notes that it’s the sign of a successful night.
‘This sets us up for the next one,’ she says. ‘We’d like to do events exclusively for straight and cis-gendered people, and one for queers in the future.’ (The launch night split tables according to sexual preference, with roughly 40 percent of attendees identifying as queer or bisexual.)
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, watch this Anomalous Space for what could be ‘a great thematic event’. Whether it’s Brief Encounter or Love Actually remains to be seen.