The Match

New York-based production company Residency Content has teamed up with agency EP+Co to help launch ‘Back The Bodega’, a trio of short films that pay tribute to the many ways in which bodegas serve the local NY community. A collaboration with three local production companies and directors, the initiative spotlights the cultural importance of the 14,000 bodegas that populate New York’s streets and serve communities - and offers all creatives involved the chance to give back to this essential part of the city’s neighbourhoods.

Working pro bono, Residency produced and provided creative oversight for one of the three films, entitled ‘The Match’. A lighthearted feel-good film geared towards first-generation Americans, it was directed by Chinese-American director and Brooklyn resident Waley Wang, whose award-winning work highlights the ever-elusive and uncultivated experiences of being Asian American as well as a young millennial.

Emphasising the need to support small businesses, the heartwarming 60” spot is a narrative comedy about a teenage girl trying to get approval for her non-Chinese boyfriend from the Matchmaker, Mrs. Yuan, who is based in the back of Broadway Food Mart bodega in Queens. With a cameo from the real-life owner of the bodega, Jimmy, who plays himself at the start of the film, the film playfully satirises superstitions of Chinese culture. Whilst the Matchmaker and boyfriend don’t get along initially due to her conservative Chinese beliefs, it’s revealed he can in fact speak fluent Mandarin - gaining him instant family status.

With an initial brief from EP+Co to highlight a unique bodega from each New York borough, Waley chose to spotlight Broadway Food Mart in Queens and embraced the open creative nature of the brief, using comedy as a way to help audiences connect with the campaign’s social message. Influenced by Waley’s own fantasies and the idea of Asian immigrants and older generations meshing more with Black American communities, the comedic punchline of the boyfriend speaking fluent Mandarin is more profound than just surprising.