Latest news with #EvaVictor
LeMonde
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- LeMonde
Eva Victor, director of 'Sorry, Baby': Cinema as a path to healing
After gaining recognition at the end of the 2010s with short funny videos posted on X, Eva Victor – who identifies as non-binary – embarked on a second career at 31 as an actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. A successful career shift: Their first feature film Sorry, Baby won an award at the Sundance Film Festival and was selected in May for the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. "I don't think I want to continue making something, putting it out that day and then hearing people's opinions on it," Victor said on a Friday in July during a Zoom interview. "I think I was really craving doing something that was a longer form piece that could say a lot of things in it." Agnes, their character – a restless woman trying to overcome trauma – owes much to Victor's own life experience, a subject they are reluctant to discuss in detail. Having been sexually assaulted several years ago, Victor said they found a form of healing in making Sorry, Baby: "As a director, directing myself as an actor, I chose where my body went at every point. I felt very safe." Above all, they wanted "people to come in feeling like the film's going to take care of them." They hoped to forge a sense of community among viewers: "I think laughing and crying, they're in a circle, and they touch on something essential."
Vogue
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
On the Podcast: Eva Victor Talks Sorry, Baby and Sandwiches
Being a triple threat—writing, directing, and acting—seems to come naturally to the inimitable Eva Victor. With their celebrated feature directorial debut, Sorry, Baby (now in theaters), Eva brings deadpan humor and refreshingly original storytelling to a story about trauma—swiftly establishing them as one of the most exciting emerging talents out there. On this episode of The Run-Through with Vogue, Eva joins Chloe to talk about the inspirations behind the film (from close friendships to the Vegitalian sandwich at Court Street Grocers); the challenges of directing for the first time; their deep love for cats; and working with expert stylist Danielle Goldberg on their red carpet looks. But first, Chloe and Chioma dive into Charli XCX's (not-so-Brat) wedding look, Rihanna's masterful maternity styling and custom designer looks for her kids, and everything we know so far about the highly anticipated The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Washington Post
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Eva Victor made funny viral videos. They led to a funny film about trauma.
Eva Victor stood still, drenched and disappointed. It was spring 2024. The filmmaker, who uses they/she pronouns, had been shooting their directorial debut, 'Sorry, Baby,' in the coastal town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, when they received a text from their mother informing them of an ancestor named Lydia buried in a graveyard nearby. Victor carved out a break in the tight 24-day shoot to search for the grave, hoping for some meaningful revelation, but instead found themself standing in a cemetery amid a torrential downpour, without a single 'Lydia' marker in sight. 'I was like, 'Okay, this is insane,'' Victor, 31, recalled in a May interview at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown. And yet, it also felt so in character. The real-life scene seemed exactly like the sort of situation Victor's 'Sorry, Baby' protagonist, Agnes, would wind up in. The film, which just opened in D.C., is darkly funny and extraordinarily compassionate as it follows Agnes in the aftermath of being sexually assaulted — something that also happened to Victor, who wrote the screenplay. The story unfolds nonlinearly and delicately conveys Agnes's devastation. There are no theatrics. Any emotional change is gradual. For the most part, Agnes keeps still while life continues to whirl around her. 'I wanted to speak to the experience of stuckness, and what it feels like when the world is moving at a faster pace than you,' Victor said. If anyone can bring out Agnes's sense of humor amid the doldrums, it's her best friend — who just happens to be named Lydia. The character, played by Naomi Ackie ('Blink Twice,' 'Mickey 17'), already bore the name by the time Victor received their mom's text about the ancestor. 'I was like, 'Okay, there's something at play here,'' Victor said. Maybe the fictional Lydia would play a role in their life that the real one could not. Because as much as 'Sorry, Baby' is about the destabilizing effects of assault, it is also about how support from chosen family can help you heal. The film takes place throughout a five-year period, during which Lydia — nicknamed Lydie — visits Agnes at the house they lived in together while attending graduate school. While Agnes remains isolated in the small New England college town, sticking around after graduation to serve as an adjunct professor in the English department, Lydie moves away, gets married and has a child. The growing contrast in their circumstances highlights how difficult Agnes finds it to move on from 'something pretty bad,' as she refers to the assault a few years later. 'How complicated is that, when you know your friend is … in an arrested development because of trauma?' Ackie said over the phone. 'And yet there's still this deep love and appreciation for each other, having seen each other grow up in such an integral time of your lives.' Early in the pandemic, Victor received a direct message from the Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins ('Moonlight'). He was a fan of their viral comedy videos — such as the tongue-in-cheek 'me explaining to my boyfriend why we're going to straight pride,' posted to Twitter in 2019 — and told them to reach out to his production company, Pastel, if they ever wanted to work on something together. That timing felt like fate, as Victor had been trying for a while to write about their experience healing from trauma. While other producers tended to approach them with comedic projects in mind, hearing from Jenkins, who largely works in drama, encouraged their tonal pivot. Victor wrote 'Sorry, Baby' while holed away in a Maine cabin that winter and sent a copy of the screenplay over to Pastel in early 2021. Adele Romanski, Jenkins's producing partner, was struck by how 'fully realized' the script was when it arrived to Pastel, she said. The producers met with Victor and immediately asked: 'How do you see yourself participating in it? Are you acting in it? Are you directing it?' Victor wanted to perform — beyond the comedy videos, they began appearing in the Showtime series 'Billions' in 2020 — but directing would be a new frontier. The Pastel team assured Victor that they could do it, Romanski said, as directorial choices were being made in the videos posted online. 'We've done a lot of debuts,' Romanski added. Working with a first-time filmmaker is 'a risk that can have the greatest reward.' In January, 'Sorry, Baby' premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to strong reviews. Vanity Fair described the film as an 'auspicious debut,' while Variety praised the writing as 'warm and compassionate.' Writing in IndieWire, Kate Erbland commended the decision to center healing over violence, noting that Victor 'is a wise enough creator to understand that's only part of the story, because that's only part of life itself.' The film does not depict Agnes being assaulted and — because of the nonlinear time structure — only makes clear what happened to her about halfway through. The audience learns the cause of the character's stunted emotion when she comes home visibly shaken after meeting with her thesis adviser (Louis Cancelmi) and tells Lydie about how he forced himself upon her. Agnes sits upright in a bathtub as she haltingly narrates the night's events to Lydie, who validates that what Agnes experienced was rape. 'That's what the film is about,' Victor said. 'It's about someone being there to listen and hold [you] in the aftermath of something bad. The middle of the film isn't violence; it's [Agnes] in the bathtub telling her friend about what happened, and her friend listening really well and responding. Their friendship is the most important relationship in the film, so I wanted to put that first.' Victor shies away from discussing the specifics of what happened to them in real life. Interviews can be tough for the filmmaker, they said, as almost everything they have to say is already in the movie — even if it's fictionalized. While Victor never attended graduate school, a frustrating meeting between Agnes and two members of the HR department allows them to comment on how these institutions have historically failed sexual assault survivors. Victor doubles down on their criticism of systemic failures in a scene set the morning after Agnes is assaulted, when she faces a hostile line of questioning from a male doctor who criticizes her for waiting to come to the hospital. 'This string of institutional failures was always a part of the film,' Victor said. Agnes chooses to remain at the school — and even ends up working in the office previously occupied by her rapist — because 'she's like, 'No, I deserve to stay here, even if I'm in this office that feels like it's haunted by the ghost of what used to be here.'' She attempts to reclaim the space. Victor found it therapeutic to revisit their past while directing 'Sorry, Baby.' Being in charge of the set meant they could recover a sense of control that was once taken away from them. 'The experience of this kind of trauma is sort of all about someone deciding where your body goes,' they said. 'Being able to be like, 'No, this is where my body goes. I am leading this whole thing. I decide if this is where I go,' is a very special experience.' Given its subject matter and dreary aesthetic — Victor drew visual inspiration from Kelly Reichardt's mellow drama 'Certain Women' and Kenneth Lonergan's ultra-depressing 'Manchester by the Sea' — it might surprise audiences how funny 'Sorry, Baby' can be. Ackie's favorite scene to shoot occurs at the start of the film, when the roommates lounge on their living room couch, trading outlandish jokes about the ways men behave when they're having sex. 'That took us a long time to do,' Ackie said. 'There are so many takes where we are literally laughing out of control. We were trying so many different things … but finally found the right pitch.' Victor paid extra attention to tone while editing the film, making sure Agnes's gallows humor was sensitive enough to exist alongside some of the more serious material. There are carefully calibrated laughs throughout. Each interaction Agnes shares with her awkward neighbor and sometimes-lover, Gavin (Lucas Hedges, of 'Manchester by the Sea' and 'Lady Bird'), for instance, plays as cringe comedy. A scene where Agnes is summoned to jury duty for an assault case but can't decide whether to disclose her potential bias toes the line between drama and comedy: It highlights how even the most mundane situations can be triggering for an assault victim, while depicting her indecision with the absurdity of a single-camera sitcom. 'The tone, it's really a tightrope in every moment,' Victor said. They were nervous to witness 'Sorry, Baby' premiere at Sundance, as the festival marked the first time the film screened for a crowd of more than 30 people. They wanted everyone in the dark theater to have the privacy to process the more harrowing moments on their own, but also the freedom to share uplifting moments with the people around them. When Victor heard resounding laughter at an appropriate moment, they let out a sigh of relief. 'I was like, 'God. Thank God.'' 'This isn't really about me,' Victor said. 'It's about us having that experience together. That's what I hold on to.'
Washington Post
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘Sorry, Baby': When bad things happen to smart women
In 'Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor plays Agnes, a recent grad student who teaches at her alma mater. Agnes lives in a house out in the country that, depending on her mood, is either snuggly cozy or just waiting for an ax murderer to show up in the dead of night. Twin moods — comfort and dread, resilience and paralysis, rage and sorrow — animate a film that finds Agnes in the throes of recovery from what she'll only call 'a bad thing that happened to me.' Although Victor scrambles time in a way that makes the bad thing a big reveal, most viewers will understand its broad contours within minutes. The act itself isn't the point in 'Sorry, Baby': Victor's central concern is the aftermath, with all its ripple effects and recriminations, grim reminders of just how common bad things are in nearly every woman's life, and how nearly every woman's life is made up of countless acts of getting on with it that will never be recognized as examples of unimaginable courage.
The Guardian
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Melbourne international film festival 2025: the 10 movies you must see this year
Director: Bi Gan Country: China, France Bi Gan's last feature, 2018's Long Day's Journey Into Night, became the subject of unlikely wrath in its home country when it was marketed as a sumptuous romance to Chinese filmgoers – who then showed up on its New Year's Eve premiere to watch an elliptical, esoteric odyssey that concludes with a 59-minute, one-shot dream sequence shot in 3D. The Cannes prize winner Resurrection sounds equally enigmatic: a 160-minute epic set in a future where humans no longer dream, though a group of fringe rebels defy the odds. The film traverses Chinese national history as well as cinematic lineage; by all accounts, it sounds suitably deranged. – Michael Sun Director: Mary Bronstein Country: US Who doesn't have time for Rose Byrne? The Australian actor is a reliable and perhaps under-appreciated performer but rarely gets big, meaty, interesting, grandstanding roles … until now. In this year's opening night film she stars as Linda, a Long Island therapist caring for a sick daughter and navigating a series of intense crises. Byrne's performance has tongues wagging, attracting descriptors such as 'monumental', 'tour de force' and 'harrowingly brilliant'. – Luke Buckmaster Director: Eva Victor Country: US Twee is good again! We are so back. Eva Victor's Sundance award-winning debut (produced by Barry Jenkins) follows a long legacy of arch, affected comedies that unpeel to reveal their base anxieties: Frances Ha, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Miranda July's entire oeuvre, and any American indie made circa 2010. Sorry, Baby might be twee's purest form: a New England pastoral following a twentysomething professor of letters (Victor herself) so full of blundering charm and jagged one-liners that the film's emotional centrepiece lands like a full-body tackle. – Michael Sun Director: Joshua Oppenheimer Country: Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, UK, Sweden Joshua Oppenheimer is best known for directing gut-wrenching documentaries about mass murders in Indonesia (The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence). Nobody saw his first narrative film coming: a post-apocalyptic musical entirely set in an underground bunker, in a future world made uninhabitable by the climate crisis. Reviews so far have been mixed: Radheyan Simonpillai called it 'intermittently fascinating' while Wendy Ide pegged it as 'wildly ambitious' but 'catastrophically self-indulgent'. – Luke Buckmaster Director: Constantine Costi Country: Australia, UK It's the film about making porridge you never knew you needed! Constantine Costi's charming doco unpacks the world's annual porridge-making competition, which takes place in the Scottish village of Carrbridge. As I wrote in my review, 'a pleasure to watch – with endearing salt-of-the-earth subjects, a lovely ebb and flow, and a tone that feels just right: neither overly serious nor tongue in cheek.' – Luke Buckmaster Director: Charlie Shackleton Country: US, UK It's 2025 and everything is just true crime now. Every murderer has a six-part Netflix limited series. Every scammer has a podcast and a spot on Dancing With the Stars. Every TikToker is an armchair detective and every TikTok is CSI. So what now? If you're British documentarian Charlie Shackleton, you try – and fail – to make a film about the Zodiac Killer. And then from the ashes you build something weirder: part send-up, part homage to the true crime genre, full of 'amusing comments on all [its] cliches and mannerisms', says our Guardian review. – Michael Sun Director: Raoul Peck Country: France, US We'd all love to live in a world where George Orwell got it wrong, and none of his ideas came to pass. Sadly the great author's work continues to be terrifyingly prescient. Director Raoul Peck's documentary has unpacked Orwell's life and career while constructing a thesis that connects the ideas in Nineteen Eighty-Four to contemporary events, including the US Capitol attack and the war in Ukraine. – Luke Buckmaster Director: Christian Petzold Country: Germany It can often feel masochistic to watch a Christian Petzold film in the depths of Melbourne winter; his most recent trio (this one included) have been devastatingly chic pictures of beautiful and willowy Europeans swimming, sunbathing and idling while slowly digesting some life-altering tragedy or heartache. Petzold's longtime muse, Paula Beer, returns here as a woman who's taken in by an older, genial stranger after her boyfriend dies in a road accident – though an eerie mist hangs over the countryside cottage like a haunting. At 86 minutes, it feels close to a novella: gauzy and elegant. – Michael Sun Directors: Maggie Miles and Trisha Morton-Thomas Country: Australia The life and legacy of the inimitable David Gulpilil was unpacked in Molly Reynolds' superb 2021 documentary My Name Is Gulpilil – a very tough act to follow. This new film, narrated by Hugh Jackman and co-directed by Maggie Miles and Trisha Morton-Thomas, captures the final stage of Gulpilil's story, in which he was laid to rest in his homeland of Gupulul in Arnhem Land. Miff's program calls it a 'continent-traversing commemoration worthy of his transcendent talent'. – Luke Buckmaster Director: Genki Kawamura Country: Japan As a fan of both the original version of The Exit 8 and its virtual reality spin-off, I kind of can't believe they made a movie out of it. It's essentially a spot-the-difference video game in which the player navigates a series of near-identical hallways in a Tokyo subway station and must decide whether each environment is exactly the same as the first hallway they encountered. So not exactly a production crying out for feature film treatment. Kazunari Ninomiya plays the tripped-out commuter who really should've caught the bus. – Luke Buckmaster Melbourne international film festival 2025 runs 7-24 August in venues across the city and regional Victoria, as well as online through Acmi. Tickets sales open now for Miff members and will open to the general public on 15 July
