I Don't Know Who You Are

''I Don't Know Who You Are'' is a 2023 Canadian drama film, written, directed, and edited by M. H. Murray. Murray's full-length directorial debut, the film stars Mark Clennon as Benjamin, a gay working class musician who is urgently trying to find $1,000 to pay for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to protect himself from HIV after he is sexually assaulted by a stranger.

The film premiered in the Discovery program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

Plot

Over the course of one weekend, a gay working class musician named Benjamin must urgently scrape together $1,000 to pay for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to protect himself from HIV after he is sexually assaulted by a stranger.

Cast

Many of the health care workers depicted in the film are played by real medical professionals involved in HIV treatment and advocacy.

Production

Benjamin is a reprisal of the same character Clennon previously played in Murray's 2020 short film ''Ghost''. The screenplay is based in part on Murray's own experience having to navigate the health care system to attain PEP treatment after being sexually assaulted.

The film was co-produced by Murray and Clennon, as well as Martine Brouillet and Victoria Long, while Clennon and Long also served as story editors for the screenplay.

In an essay for CBC Arts, Murray described the process of making the film on a limited budget, particularly in having to shoot many of its scenes guerrilla-style without permits.M. H. Murray
"We snuck in without permission to shoot our film's climax — and then everything went black"
CBC Arts, September 8, 2023.

Distribution

The film premiered in the Discovery program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. In March 2024, the film screened at the 38th annual BFI Flare in London.

The film was picked up for theatrical distribution in 2024.

Critical response

''I Don’t Know Who You Are'' has received positive reviews from film critics, with particular praise for Clennon's performance.

Barry Hertz of ''The Globe and Mail'' ranked the film 7th on his list of the top 10 Canadian films of 2023, describing the film as "a tremendously tense portrait of small-scale desperation" and "a seriously impressive micro-budget debut".

Adam Nayman, writing for the ''Toronto Star'', called the film “deeply affecting” and wrote that "Murray’s movie transforms its furtive production circumstances into a fully realized style. Instead of showing the city off, it cultivates a dizzy dislocation — the paranoid sensation of being surrounded at all times without necessarily feeling connected, or of anxious walks home under flickering street-lights."

Vadim Rizov of ''Filmmaker Magazine'' felt that some scenes were “overly attenuated” but concluded that the film is "a solid feature debut" with “a strong sense of a particular micro-milieu."

Angelo Muredda of '' Cinema Scope'' described the film as "an empathetic character study that effectively balances its punchy genre elements with its human drama."

Matthew Creith of ''IN Magazine'' praised the film and Clennon's performance, writing that "''I Don’t Know Who You Are'' is an urgent tale full of interconnected relationships and rough realities" that "shines brilliantly as it projects impatience, artistry, worthwhile surprises, and the motivations behind propelling one man forward after a tragedy complicates his existence."

Accolades

The film was selected to compete for the $10,000 RBC Emerging Artist Award at the 2023 Calgary International Film Festival.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 28585739

2023 films
2023 drama films
2023 LGBT-related films
English-language Canadian films
Canadian drama films
Canadian LGBT-related films
2020s Canadian films
Black Canadian films
HIV/AIDS in Canadian films
Films shot in Toronto
LGBT Black Canadian culture
2023 directorial debut films