Mark Clennon and M.H. Murray explore so much we rarely see in their haunting debut film

Here & Queer is an interview series hosted by Peter Knegt that celebrates and amplifies the work of LGBTQ artists through unfiltered conversations.

The new film I Don't Know Who You Are takes on so much that we rarely,if ever, see on screen: the social inequities of the Canadian healthcare system; what it means to be a struggling artist right now in Toronto; and how it feels to survive a sexual assault as a queer person of colour. 

It's also the remarkable feature film debut of both M.H. Murray and Mark Clennon, who together wore as many hats as is humanly possible on the film. Murray directed, produced, edited and wrote the film, while Clennon stars in its lead role, in addition to being its producer, story editor, and the writer and performer of its original songs.

"It's a few different stories all at once," Clennon says of the film. "It's a love story. It's a story about surviving a tragic event, but it's also a story about the social construct of our city."

The city he refers to is Toronto, a place that rarely gets honest depictions on screen. But I Don't Know Who You Are does not shy away from offering a glimpse into just how challenging the city can be today.

"I think that it's unfortunate that people have to go above and beyond just to survive," says Clennon —himself a Torontonian. "But I think that is the type of tenacity and the type of grit that artists have, because they're faced with so many challenges. An artist like myself: I'm an actor, but I also have other streams of income, and I think you just kind of have to rise to the occasion just to exist in the city. I don't know what the future is for us as artists, but I think that as long as we're able to fight for art and to work hard... Toronto will never not be a good place for artists."

I Don't Know Who You Are also depicts the sexual assault of Clennon's character Benjamin, who spends a lot of the film trying to find the money for HIV-preventive treatment in the aftermath of that event. 

"I think it's really complex because I do think there's a lot of mixed messaging [when it comes to HIV], a lot of miscommunication," Murray says. "I think some people think that it's over and then other people are more informed … I think there's such a thin line between being too on the nose with explaining the elements of it, but I think we just wanted to show a human struggling against bureaucracy and just that stressful feeling of fearing for your health, not really knowing what could happen if you do get this diagnosis."

Murray says it was also important to him to show someone in the film who does live with HIV.

"Someone who is healthy, is living a positive life, is sexually desired, is able to love and things of that nature," he says. "We didn't set out with one specific mission. I think we just wanted to try to tell something that felt honest."