From a 77-year relationship to a first date – a brisk, cheery survey of love

‘I had his meringue and he had my coffee – and that’s how it all started.’

This instalment of the People in Order series, by the UK directors Lenka Clayton and James Price, presents 48 couples in descending order based on the length of their relationships – from 77 years to what appears to be a first date. The resulting short film is a surprising, heartwarming and frequently funny survey of love across generations, cultures and sexual orientations. According to the filmmakers, the People in Order series is ‘like a list of government statistics where the citizens … have broken out from behind the figures on the page. The people on the screen stop us from seeing them as numbers. Even in single-second bursts there are worlds of personality stretching out in front of us.’