Making her first feature, writer-director Shan Jiang knew the “walking-and-talking one-night romance” had been done, but she also saw it as a “dare.”
“Setting the story in Shanghai was a conscious choice from the very beginning. It had always been the most “open” city in China as I was growing up—the most porous to the outside world,” Shan says in a statement. “But by early 2024, when we were in development, Shanghai was also a city living in the long shadow of the 2022 lockdown. I wasn’t interested in making a film about that. I was interested in making a film that could only exist in a Shanghai that had come through it—where ephemerality wasn’t only what the lovers have in the romance. It was also in the air.”
The film, Ephemera, which premieres at the 2026 Tribeca Festival, follows two women, 23-year-old Asher (Yvonne Shuyu Zhang) and her hip-hop dance teacher Tori (Shu-Yi), as they wander the streets of Shanghai on one of Asher’s last nights before returning to Los Angeles. The casual outing turns into something more as they share stories and laughter in the queer love story.
In the exclusive clip below, Asher and Tori walk and talk about their hopes and thoughts before the moment ends in a tender embrace.
In terms of what the audience should take away from the movie, Shan says, “Some of the film will fade by the time the audience gets home. And some of it might linger—maybe in ways they can’t explain, maybe years later, maybe just for one afternoon. I’d rather not dictate which parts are which.”
Ephemera will have its world premiere, as part of Tribeca’s U.S. narrative competition sectio,n on Sunday, June 7. Additional screenings are set for next week.
