A 'real honest messy attempt at healing': Eva Victor is telling a different story about sexual assault

CBC

3 days ago

WARNING: This story contains extensive discussions of sexual violence, and may affect those who have experienced it or know someone affected by it.
Eva Victor has no interest in dramatizing the violence of trauma for shock value. Instead, their debut film Sorry, Baby highlights what it takes to move on from an incident of sexual assault — years of hidden, gradual healing.
Produced by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins and distributed by A24, Victor's darkly funny movie follows a young college professor named Agnes on her gruelling yet poignant journey towards recovery from sexual assault. It's an unexpected departure from Victor's previous work; she is mainly known for their viral short comedy videos.
"It's about someone's real honest messy attempt at healing," Victor says, in an interview with Q guest host Talia Schlanger. "And it is important to me that the film de-centres violence, and centres the trying to heal. Because those are the years that I think we don't chronicle as much…. I think I wanted to honour those years that feel a bit lost in time, or they move differently to someone who's recovering than to the rest of the world."
WATCH | Official trailer for Sorry, Baby:
Eva Victor directs Sorry, Baby with abundant compassion. When the incident that Agnes refers to as "the bad thing" takes place, none of it is depicted on screen. Victor said that the idea of watching Agnes go inside with her assaulter, and making the viewer sit outside and wait for her to come back, had "always been in [their] head" since they started writing the script.
"I really wanted watching the film to be nonviolent and safe," they explain. "So there's like an element of protection… and also [holding] dramatic tension without having to see that [sexual violence]. Like, proving that that's possible.
"Also I really wanted to protect Agnes…. We're not with her physically, but in a way I feel like, because we stay outside and sort of freeze with her, in the sort of trauma response way, we get to feel close to her. And we kind of experience how she experiences that time passing."
It's a difficult story to write, let alone direct and star in. There were times that Eva Victor wondered if they were taking on too much by doing all three — especially since they had never been to film school, and this is their first full-length feature film.
Fortunately, Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins had full trust in Victor's potential. Victor says Jenkins's team gave her confidence in her vision, and provided her with guidance on how to study feature film production. Ultimately, Victor pushed beyond their comfort zone as a comedic writer to explore new psychological and professional frontiers.
"I think it's intimidating and exciting," Victor says. "First, [there was] a conversation with his whole team, and just talking about filmmaking and how the videos I was making were a version of filmmaking, just smaller and different. But that was, I think, a really inspiring conversation.… I just felt like [they were] people who saw me before I saw myself completely."