A Berlin Exile Between Two Mountains: Viv Li and the Cinematic Geography of Identity
As Berlin’s February frost besieges Potsdamer Platz, this year the heart of the festival beats not only on the red carpet but in the deepest, most hidden corners of identity. Down in the Boiler Room of Apartment No:26, a world premiere is still steaming hot this week. With a five-year excavation of memory, Viv Li signs one of the most anticipated works of Berlinale 2026.
Born and raised in Beijing, yet having spent the last 15 years on the road, Viv Li is today searching for a new home in the multicultural, chaotic, and profoundly liberating streets of Berlin. Making its world premiere in the Panorama Dokumente section of Berlinale 2026, “Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest” is not merely a migration story; it is an self-portrait that pushes the boundaries of body, memory, and belonging. Using the camera like a magnifying glass, Li stretches from the underground queer scenes of Berlin to the traditional family dinner tables of Beijing.
This film is the projection of the high-pressure emotions that have accumulated in our building’s Boiler Room. Li describes Berlin—not as a dream city arrived at by chance through an “artist visa,” but as a city of searching. Merging the roles of director, writer, and cinematographer into a single crucible, the artist carries onto the screen the strange, melancholic, and equally striking limbo state of being suspended between two different worlds through footage recorded over five years.
Viv Li’s Berlin journey begins not as a romantic escape, but as a necessity imposed by the pandemic. Yet this necessity ignites the fuse of questions Li asks about their own identity. The famous artist visa offered by Berlin opens a door not only to the artist’s career, but also to an inner revolution.
The Weight in the Ribcage: Two Mountains, Two Identities
The film’s title, “Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest,” serves as a metaphor for the shame and confusion Li has carried since childhood. Initially representing merely a physical discomfort, this title gradually transforms—over the course of the film—into the immense cultural chasm between Berlin and Beijing, that is, the weight created by two different identities. While questioning their own non-binary search within Berlin’s queer scene, Li uses the camera like a scalpel not to separate these two worlds, but to investigate how they can be carried together in the same ribcage.
Five Years of Patience and Light Play
One of the film’s most striking strengths is its hazy, melancholic aesthetic that—despite being digitally shot—gives the viewer the sensation of an analog film texture.
The Melancholy of the Digital: The shooting process, spanning from 2019 to 2025, functions as an archive of memory. The grainy texture in the color grading symbolizes the fleeting and imperfect nature of recollections.
The Miracle of the Camera: Li says they only discovered the true beauty of a temple in Beijing—passed thousands of times in daily life—when looking through the camera viewfinder. It is akin to how the machines we see every day in the Boiler Room can turn into works of art under the right light.
After fifteen years of trying to become a global citizen, building bridges between different languages and cultures, Viv Li leads us at the film’s end to a surprising pause: a pure longing for their childhood home and Chinese food. This return is not surrender; on the contrary, it is a great victory brought by self-acceptance.
“Now I want to eat Chinese food every day, feel completely at ease, and stay in my childhood home. After fifteen years, the place I’ve arrived at is actually embracing the ‘me’ who was there at the beginning.”
Screening Information
Dates: February 13 – 21, 2026
Section: Berlinale Panorama Programme / Various Cinemas
Details: berlinale.de/programme/202606587
