Speed dating
2017 · 1m · España
Directed by Raquel Menéndez
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic
Carla, a young and self-assured woman, attends a speed-dating session in a bar with low expectations. As dates advance without convincing Carla, boredom grows, and solitude with a good wine wins the evening.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Speed dating is exactly the kind of premise that sounds like a lazy sitcom setup until Menéndez refuses to play it—she'd rather watch her protagonist opt out entirely, which is the most subversive move this runtime could pull off.
The film's restraint and formal economy place it in a lineage of European minimalist comedy; Menéndez understands that the architecture of boredom—the pacing, the mounting emptiness—is itself the narrative structure.
The specific choice here is devastating in its simplicity: Menéndez lets Carla choose wine and solitude over the machinery of connection, and that single editorial decision—cutting away from the spectacle to the margins—transforms a one-minute sketch into something quietly radical.