Nothing Lasts

Two relationships unfold side by side in this contemplative Chinese short from writer-director Xiaosheng Zhuang, who also produced and edited the film. At times the couples are close enough to touch; at other times they are separated by distance, circumstance or the simple passage of years, and the film follows the way intimacy expands and contracts as time and space exert their pull. Rather than plotting a conventional arc, Nothing Lasts works as a portrait, catching its lovers in moments of connection and drift and trusting the viewer to feel the shape of what lies between them. Running fifteen minutes and performed in Mandarin, it is a quiet, meditative piece about impermanence, the kind of queer romance told less through what people say than through how they occupy the same room, or fail to.