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Logline

On her last night in Shanghai, Chinese-American actress Asher asks out her hip-hop dance teacher Tori, sparking an electric, city-wide romance that must end by sunrise.

Synopsis

In post-pandemic Shanghai, 23-year-old Asher, caught between her roots and life abroad, documents her final days in the city. When she impulsively asks Tori, her charismatic local dance teacher, on a coffee date, a spontaneous connection draws them into a night of wandering, play, and quiet intimacy. As they explore the city together, their growing bond blurs the line between fleeting encounter and something more lasting.

Meet the Filmmakers

Shan Jiang – Writer/Director/Producer
Shan Jiang is a writer-director based in Los Angeles. Her debut feature EPHEMERA is set to world premiere in the U.S. Narrative Competition at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Her previous feature screenplay LOVE, ELEPHANT & TOURBILLON won the Grand Prize at the 2024 BlueCat Screenplay Competition. Drawing from experiences between China and the United States, her films explore intimacy, displacement, and the instability of identity across cultures and genres. She inhabits familiar narrative tropes and bends them from within to allow new perspectives to emerge. She centers queer Asian subjectivity not as a symbol, but as lived experience. Shan’s upcoming projects expand her exploration of human intimacy in increasingly complex terrain, working toward a kind of cinema that remains urgent and alive in a rapidly shifting media landscape.

Ashley Jiang – Co-Writer
Ashley is an influencer and Hip Hop dancer from Shanghai, based in New York and Los Angeles. She has an MFA in Communication Management from the University of Southern California. She’s the founder of OutChina (https://www.chinalgbt.org), a multimedia nonprofit project focused on China’s queer community. She has produced documentaries, explainer videos, and a podcast with millions of views worldwide.

Jane Zheng – Producer
Founder of Seesaw Productions, Jane produced various internationally acclaimed films such as RED LIGHT REVOLUTION, KING OF PEKING, DEAD PIGS, THE FAREWELL, and A SONG SUNG BLUE. Among these, DEAD PIGS won the Special Jury Prize at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and THE FAREWELL received awards at the Golden Globe Awards, Gotham Independent Film Awards, National Board of Review Awards, and Hollywood Critics Association Awards. A SONG SUNG BLUE was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Kennie Zhou – Producer
Kennie Zhou is a New York-based producer dedicated to creating opportunities for Asian diasporas and queer communities. With experience ranging from development, production to post-production, Kennie has successfully produced projects with the scale of over 100 people in both the United States and China, for clients such as Apple, iQiyi, Bytedance, Reelshort, 88Rising, and DirectTV. Their work has been showcased at renowned international film festivals such as BFI Flare, AAIFF, NOFF, Outfest, Newfest, and FRIIFF, as well as developing viral content on global social media platforms.

Sol Ye – Co-Producer
Sol Ye is a China-based independent producer dedicated to bringing the most original, boundary-pushing Asian stories to the international audience. Her newest narrative feature EPHEMERA (2026) is set to world premiere at the Tribeca Festival’s U.S. Narrative Competition. Her feature documentary THE LAST YEAR OF DARKNESS (2023), which explores underground partying and alternative youth in China, has won the Special Mention at the CPH:DOX and was distributed by MUBI and highlighted in IndieWire’s ’20 Best Movies of 2024 (So Far)’. Her narrative feature SOME RAIN MUST FALL (2024) has won the Special Jury Award at the Berlinale Encounters Competition. Sol’s narrative short ACROSS THE WATERS (2024) was nominated for the Palme d’Or in the Cannes Short Films Competition, while her other narrative short A SOIL A CULTURE A RIVER A PEOPLE (2025) was nominated for Best Short at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti Competition. Sol has served as a Jury for NOWNESS Talent Awards, FIRST Documentary Lab and IDF West Lake International Documentary Festival. In 2022, Sol founded the production company Tiny Volcano Studio, specializing in international co-productions as well as providing bilingual production services for top-tier global platforms and brands.

Kennie Zhou – Producer
ALEX STEYERMARK has directed the feature films, PREY FOR ROCK & ROLL, ONE LAST THING…, LOSERS TAKE ALL and documentary THE 78 PROJECT MOVIE, which have been acclaimed at numerous US and International film festivals including Sundance, TIFF (Toronto), BFI London, Tribeca, Frameline, Outfest and SXSW, and are distributed throughout the world. He is a creator, producer and the director of the critically acclaimed music documentary web series, The 78 Project, which was an official selection at the inaugural Cannes Cross Media Corner and the British Film Institute’s Power to the Pixel Cross Media Forum. Prior to directing, Steyermark distinguished himself as a film music supervisor and film music producer, working on films by Spike Lee, Ang Lee, Paul Schrader, Jonathan Demme and Robert Rodriguez, among many others, and with a wide array of recording artists (David Bowie, Public Enemy, Michael Jackson, Dave Grohl and more). These include such major studio and indie films as MALCOLM X, HE GOT GAME, THE ICE STORM, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, THE BOXER, and the cult hit musical HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, among many more.

Yinx Zhou – Producer
Yinx Zhou is a New York–based director and creative producer working across narrative film, immersive media, and live performance. Their work centers East Asian and LGBTQIA+ stories through intimate, performance-driven storytelling and formal experimentation. Their projects have been selected by institutions and festivals including Venice Biennale College Blend, Tribeca Film Festival, BFI Flare, NewFest, New Orleans Film Festival, and Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. Alongside their narrative work, Yinx has collaborated with clients including Apple, Vogue, Warner Music, iQIYI, ReelShort, and 88rising. Their live and immersive projects have been presented at venues such as Arsenal Contemporary, UCCA, Judson Memorial Church, and Fridman Gallery, as well as independent performance spaces, with coverage in The New York Times, CNBC, and A Journal of Performance. NYU Tisch BFA in Theatre, Columbia University MA in Film and Media Studies.

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Contact

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