Our first batch of other films screening at Glasgow Film Festival 2024 take in a barefoot cineaste looking for a lost film, a couple of teens on a soul-searching road trip, and a soulful indictment of the Canadian healthcare system. 

In The Cemetery of Cinema (France, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Guinea), filmmaker Thierno Souleymane Diallo undertakes a quest to find a film thought lost. The film is Mouramani, a short by Mamadou Toure made in 1953, two full years before Afrique sur Seine, currently widely held to be the first African film, or at least the earliest still in existence. Embarking on his quest barefoot, Diallo travels from Guinea to Paris, his mission attaining mythic status as every film scholar he meets say they’ve heard of this legendary grail, but none have ever seen it, not even a print in a can, let alone projected.

The charming, eternally optimistic Diallo is an easy Pied Piper to follow as the The Cemetery of Cinema opens up to wider ideas about the lack of Guinean visibility in cinema, despite there being no shortage of passionate cineastes, and the fragility of film stock becomes a potent metaphor of art itself; its gossamer, delicate state vulnerable to various external forces, be they political, social, ideological, or financial, but also possessed of tectonic force when a work resonates or an idea takes hold. Mouramani, in its Schrödinger’s state of existential limbo, becomes something both totemic and insubstantial. The narrative also carries a bit of that ineffability and there’s a niche appeal, but those interested in film curation and preservation, the roots of African cinema, and film studies as a wider discipline, will gain much from accompanying Diallo on his journey. 3/5

A journey of a different kinds provides the backdrop of George Jaques‘ Black Dog (UK/ 2023/ 96 mins). Two troubled teenagers, schoolmates in primary school, but practically strangers on arrival at adulthood, take a road trip from Brixton up the A1M. Sam (Keenan Munn-Francis) is a shy kid with an eating disorder and other mental health issues just about kept in check with medication who is planning to meet up with his mum. Nathan (Jamie Fetters) is an effervescent, cocky young man about to age out of the foster care system. He’s heading to Scotland to track down his sister, from whom he’s been long separated.

Director George Jacques and star Jamie Fetters conceived the idea for the film five years back and despite the length of time it took to bring it to the screen Black Dog has all its youthful exuberance and an understandable lack of focus intact. The performances are powerful, with Nathan’s arc in particular allowing for an initially grating presence to soften and mature. The two young writers were clearly less sure about the character of Sam, who remains frustratingly vague in his shyness apart from a few overly-dramatic outbursts. The film also hints at various issues without really taking them on. Given the road movie is generally not a narrative-driven genre, it should be the ideal environment for the wider themes to be played out through the character work, so it feels like an opportunity has been missed. Still, Jaques has real talent behind the camera, giving an illusion of real scale to England’s motorways, and the two actors tease out a fine chemistry that keeps it interesting. 3/5

In I Don’t Know Who You Are (M.H. Murray/ Canada/ 2023/ 103 mins), a gay musician suffers a sexual assaults and finds himself in a race against time to scrape together the money for HIV preventative treatment. Based on the director’s own experience, Ben (Mark Clennon) tries to beg and borrow from a number of sources in order to get his first dose of the PEP pills within the timeframe of their efficacy. Given his social circle is mainly made up of similar hand-to-mouth bohemians as himself, even a $1000 isn’t an easy sum to obtain.

With a polemical social conscious that brings to mind Ken Loach, and an episodic immediacy reminiscent of The Dardennes’ Two Days, One Night, I Don’t Know Who You Are is an impressive debut. Clennon and Murray collaborated on Murray’s short film Ghost, and the pair clearly have a phenomenal bond. Clennon’s performance is naturalistic to the point of feeling effortless. Less natural are some of the instances in which Ben allows his pride to potentially get in the way of his health, and there are obvious avenues that simply aren’t taken. Nevertheless, I Don’t Know Who You Are is extremely engaging and looks incredible given its miniscule budget. Clennon should be a star, and a performance he gives on stage late in the film is a spinetingling moment of emotional catharsis. 3/5

The Cemetery of Cinema received its Scottish Premiere as part of Glasgow Film Festival

Black Dog received its Scottish Premiere and also screens Fri 1 Mar 2024 as part of Glasgow Film Festival

I Don’t Know Who You Are received its UK Premiere also screen Fri Mar 2024 as part of Glasgow Film Festival