ND/NF ’26: Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest

What is it like to come out as non-binary in today’s China? Artist-filmmaker Viv Li is reluctant to find out. To a large degree, she has adopted the norms and values of the Grman hipster art-world, but she still wants to identify as Chinese. Through her very personal lens, the audience gets an unvarnished perspective on both worlds in Li’s Two Mountains Weighing Down on My Chest, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Weirdly, there just might be something to annoy everyone in Li’s film, which is absolutely a point in its favor. Through her German friends she engages in various forms of nudist “decadence” (as the Maoists back home might say). Indeed, a great deal of the pretentious art produced by her circle will truly underwhelm the average working-class stiff, from either China or the West.

Yet, when Li returns home, she is clearly put off by her relatives’ idolization of Mao and Xi. She tries to hold her tongue and avoid politics, but she has to scoff when they claim the majority of American homes lack basic necessities, like electrified power. Indeed, regardless, of your take on the art produced by Li’s friends, her film vividly documents the dubious nature of CCP propaganda and just how desperately older Chinese generations want to believe it.

In many ways, Li takes a free associational approach, so moments of great insight might be followed by a long stretch of noodling. Yet, there are quite a few fascinating nuggets regularly awaiting viewers, like when Li explains to a fellow artist confidant that she believes she learned how to be a friend from watching the sitcom Friends (and for the record, she never complains about its much-maligned lack of diversity).

Frankly, editor Christoph Bargfrede may have been a little too indulgent, Nevertheless, it is fascinating to watch Li navigate the vastly different cultures of her two worlds. Indeed, only Li could have made this film, which to her credit, she did. Recommended for those intrigued by her expatriate experiences and in-between-ideologies perspective, Two Mountains Weighing Down on My Chest screens today (4/18) at MoMA and tomorrow (4/19) at the Walter Reade, as a ND/NF ‘26 selection.