I Don't Know Who You Are
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Mark Clennon
Victoria Long
Mark Clennon
Martine Brouillet
Victoria Long
| I Don't Know Who You Are | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Houston Bone |
| Written by | Houston Bone Mark Clennon Victoria Long |
| Produced by | Houston Bone Mark Clennon Martine Brouillet Victoria Long |
| Starring | Mark Clennon |
| Cinematography | Dmitry Lopatin |
| Edited by | Houston Bone |
| Music by | Spencer Creaghan |
Production company | Black Elephant Productions |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
I Don't Know Who You Are is a 2023 Canadian drama film, written, directed, and edited by Houston Bone.[1] Bone'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)[2] to protect himself from HIV after he is sexually assaulted by a stranger.[1]
The film premiered in the Discovery program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival,[3] before being picked up for theatrical distribution in 2024.[4][5]
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.[1][2]
Cast
- Mark Clennon as Benjamin
- Anthony Diaz as Malcolm
- Nat Manuel as Ariel
- Deragh Campbell as Agnes
- Victoria Long as Lola
- Kevin A. Courtney as Oscar
- Michael Hogan as The Man
- Grace E. McDonald as Benjamin's mother, Angela
- Radcliffe Goldbourne as Benjamin's father, Marcus
- Randy Davis as Carl from the HIV clinic
- Cheryl Wagner as The Emergency Room Doctor
- Chris Wong as The Pharmacist
- Lawrene Denkers as Melanie
- Peyton McLean as Terrence
- Ilgi Bodan as Cassandra
- Nileigh Bodan as Tabetha
- David Draper as Paul
- Felicia Morrison as Anne
- Erik Berg as The Security Guard
- Denzel Grant as Ed
Health care workers depicted in the film are portrayed by real medical professionals involved in HIV treatment and advocacy.[6]
Production
Benjamin is a reprisal of the same character Clennon previously played in Bone's 2020 short film Ghost.[7] The screenplay is based in part on Bone's own experience having to navigate the health care system to attain PEP treatment after being sexually assaulted.[6]
The film was co-produced by Bone and Clennon, with Martine Brouillet and Victoria Long,[8] while Clennon and Long also served as story editors for the screenplay.[9]
In an essay for CBC Arts, Bone described the process of making the film on a limited budget, particularly in having to shoot many of its scenes guerrilla-style without permits.[9]
Distribution
The film premiered in the Discovery program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.[3] In March 2024, the film screened at the 38th annual BFI Flare in London.[10]
The film was picked up for distribution after its TIFF premiere,[4] and later had a limited theatrical release in Canada and the United States in 2024.[5][11]
Critical response
I Don't Know Who You Are has received generally positive reviews from film critics,[12][13][14][15] with particular praise for Clennon's lead performance.[16][17][18][19] Critics have drawn comparisons between I Don't Know Who You Are and Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962),[20] Uncut Gems (2019),[21][22] and Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020).[23]
Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail ranked the film 7th on his list of the top 10 Canadian films of 2023,[24] describing the film as "a tremendously tense portrait of small-scale desperation" and "a seriously impressive micro-budget debut".[25]
Adam Nayman, writing for the Toronto Star, called the film “deeply affecting” and wrote that the 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."[26]
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."[27]
Angelo Muredda of Cinema Scope described the film as "an empathetic character study that effectively balances its punchy genre elements with its human drama."[28]