Berlinale – Jun Li and »Queer Panorama«: rubble landscape in the bedroom

It was clear that this word would come – and not too rarely. “Identity” is about time. “Identity” has been the favorite word in a discourse that is not one for a few years. People always say “identity” when there is a lack of political argument. Heiner Müller already said everything necessary in the matter in the early 1990s: “Identity is fiction” and “Whoever is identical to yourself can be incorporated, who no longer exists, is no longer on the move. Identity is a monument. ”

A little like in the intellectual coffin is also the world premiere of the film “Queer Panorama” in the Panorama section at the 75th Berlinale. The 33-year-old director Jun Li addresses a few words to his audience in advance. An actor and friend asked him if he did not want to withdraw his film contribution from the festival in order to show solidarity with the BDS movement. The part of the auditorium is loud for the first time. Li decided against it, he worked so hard to be here. He is probably in favor of it, only it shouldn’t cost him anything.

The actor’s statement is then also given, which he does not want to keep under lock and key. Due to the political situation in Germany, however, he does not want to play the video message, but rather read the letter. There is a rejoicing again. Which political situation in Germany, however, makes it impossible to play a video message, while it can be read without a stop.

It is an indictment with the usual points, all of which are directed exclusively against Israel. It will not be a coincidence that she doesn’t seem to know about recent developments, a fragile but life -saving ceasefire, for example. Freedom only exists for everyone, reads whether they are queer or Palestinians. An interjection that wants to find out whether this also applies to Jews remains unanswered. The read demand for freedom for Palestine is touched by a minority in the audience with the appeal to free Palestine from Hamas. However, such inputs are not desired and will soon be moderated with the request for a “respectful exchange”. The whole ends with the inevitable and ubiquitous slogan, albeit in Berlin as a criminal slogan: “From the River to the Sea / Palestine Shall BE FREE”. The majority in the hall are completely out of the house.

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In identity policy furor, the confused and complex war in Middle East is also broken down on a schoolyard brawl: for Jun Li, the identities are more than clear, the good here, the bad ones. A lot of pathos and excitement for conceivably simple insights.

The truth about this premiere evening also includes that the politically inexperienced Jun Li with “queer panorama”, his third feature film, an extremely sensitive, sad-poetic and sometimes carefully groping, sometimes carelessly boring narrative for the cinema. His impressive leading actor Jayden Cheung plays a young gay man in Hong Kong, who moves from one-night stand to one-night stand.

Cheung meets very different men in this film. From one to the next of the intimate meetings, he saves something of his short -term encounters. He accepts part of the identity of his sexual partners for the already almost anonymous appointments, perhaps the name, profession or origin, perhaps also a quirk in bed. He can fall back on just a few impressions that he wins between quick sex and reduced dialogues.

The almost one and a half hour film remains exciting despite the reduced action. The director leaves the audience in a clever way through the chronology of this round. And what the main character awaits remains surprising. No piece of pornography runs over the canvas, rather a documentation about the desperate and barely fulfilled search for lust and closeness. Not every meeting ends only physically fulfilling. Crashes are visible, if not voyeuristic. Abuse also seems inevitable.

The idea of ​​this kind of “silent post” for gay adults could also have made a completely different, a cheerful film. Jun Li primarily presents us with the overwhelming loneliness of his characters. Sound trackless and in black and white. We learn fragments from the biographies of seeking people. We do not know whether there is a fewer actors than the imitation -like main character. Everything seems lied, but quite close to the sad truth. Everyone is a performer, impossible even if there is actually intimacy in the game. The authentic sexual partner is a fiction.

Because, apart from his main actor, Li has filled all figures with laypersons and added their own experience in the script, he gives his film a double floor. Because here people play themselves, which cannot generate a supposed authenticity, despite all conceivable expectations. The memorial identity has long been torn, we also only see the debris in the film.

It is regrettable that this stirring film has been framed by political simplifications.

»QueerPanorama«: USA, Hong Kong, China 2025. Director/Book: Jun Li. With Jayden Cheung, Erfan Shekarriz, Sebastian Mahito Soukup, ARM Anatphikorn and Zenni Corbin. 87 minutes.