For the last forty years, the Sundance Film Festival has been a crucial festival to highlight American independent cinema. Each year, when the event unveils its lineup, cinephiles, audiences, and sales agents dive into the programming to guess which of the selections will join films like Little Miss Sunshine, Memento, and Reservoir Dogs, among others, as Park City world premieres to enchant the public. This year, one of those titles came from the U.S. Dramatic Competition. It is Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby. Produced by PASTEL, the Barry Jenkins production company, the film is a courageous and beautiful journey post-trauma. The central element of the film is Victor.
Sorry, Baby is a project about healing after abuse. In this sense, Victor, as the director, writer, and lead actor of the film, achieves a sensible, funny, and mature film about reconnecting with the world. The director’s prior comic sensibilities are in the character’s response to the situations, while displaying irony to process the emotional wounds. Movies We Texted About had the opportunity to participate in a virtual roundtable with Eva Victor to talk about their impressive debut feature. We chat about participating in festivals around the world and assembling a crew for the first time.
The Interview with Eva Victor of Sorry, Baby
Pedro Lima: First of all, congratulations on the film. It’s one of my favorites of the year, and it’s an impressive debut. And you’ve talked a lot about writing and filming, but I would like to know about the finished project. When the film was ready and you got selected to Sundance, then the film was acquired by A24. And then you’ve done The Director’ s Fortnight (Quinzaine des Cineastes), Karlovy Vary. You’ve done plenty of major festivals in the world. So could you talk to me about how was to present the film in this major stage with your debut feature and how was to see the response from each audience and also the distribution. How was this process for you after you shot it?
Eva Victor: Yeah, you know. I haven’t really talked about that part of it, so it’s nice to get a question about it. It’s funny. Like, when we got to Sundance and the premiere was in the Eccles (theater), and it was like 1300 people or something like that. We’d only shown the film to about 30 people at a time, maybe four times.
It was a very surreal, scary experience, and I sweat through my outfit and was like sitting in the front the whole time, and it was just very surreal. But it was also such a relief in a lot of ways because the audience, I mean, it was such a warm audience, but they were so there so quickly. Like, they laughed. So, like, there’s kind of this thing where, like, if you laugh within the first, like, five minutes of the film, like, we’re going to have an okay time watching the film together, but if you don’t like, it’s a different thing. And so I was very relieved that the audience was warm and understood what was going on tonally and moved through the tone in a way that I felt like they were there with the film.
Eva Victor: But it’s interesting, you know, you go to different places and the audience, and it’s a very devastating in a lot of ways, experience to sit through a film where you’re in it, like, it’s just. It’s kind of a mind f*ck. Sorry, am I allowed to say that? Well, I did. And I try not to watch the film as much as I can, but, you know. They do have you sit there and it’s like a social experiment and how difficult it is to watch your own film in a group. But it was interesting in different audiences. Like in France, they were laughing and I was kind of like, well, that’s not that funny right now. But, you know, different audiences have different reactions. But it’s been a real joy to, like, have it hit theaters. That was kind of my dream going into Sundance was like, I would love for it to happen in theaters because, you know. You make it. You color it and you make the sound on this big screen, and your dream is just that people get to see it that way.
Eva Victor: And I do think for this film particularly, like, it’s meant a lot that when people go see it in the theater, because I do think the privacy of a theater is very powerful and, like, the darkness of it allows you to sort of feel everything you want to feel without feeling exposed. But you’re not completely alone. Like, you are in a group, but you’re all facing the same way, so you’re feeling faces. You can’t see anyone’s faces. So it’s like anonymous, but emotional. And that has been very rewarding to have people experience the film like that. But it’s my first time making a movie, so it’s all very new to me and I think it’s good. I didn’t know what was coming because nobody even knew the movie existed before Sundance. Like, it was never announced, which was nice. The privacy was good.
Pedro Lima: I would like to know this time about how was the process of selecting the crew that worked with you, because you said that it was your first experience in film as general directing. And how was the process of assembling the crew like this? An cinematographer, a composer. How was to select the team that would work with you?
Eva Victor: Yeah, you know. Because I hadn’t directed anything before, my producers very thoughtfully set me up to shoot a practice workshop before I directed, like about a year before the film was shot. And I was working with Mia Cioffi Henry, who is the DP (Director of Photography) on the film, to prep that. And that was so helpful. It’s a real journey to discover how to talk about language, visual, like, how to talk about visual things with language. Like, that’s why we have visual language, so that we don’t have to use words and it’s hard to get to visual language through words, so it was very helpful to get a lot of time with her to really download her on what I was doing. And, you know, I was acting in it. So me taking on more roles meant more people taking on more roles. And so it was kind of about assembling people who had that kind of fire too. And really felt the script meant something to them. Like, that was always the guiding force is like, when they’re talking about it is this like, can I see the fire? And it was much more, for me, that kind of passion and experience was less important to me in a lot of roles.
Eva Victor: But, you know, the. Speaking of score, like, I’d love to talk about Lia’s (Ouyang Rusli) score because we were using temp score in all the cuts and nothing worked like either. It would be these sad violins and that would make it like a real tragedy drama. It felt like it was telling you what to feel. Or if we chose something a little lighter, like, it would feel kind of glib or like, kind of indie. Like something that felt like, not true to this film. It just felt like it was another film on the film. And Lia came in and just created this, like, seriously sad, whimsical, heartfelt score that I think It’s very much a huge part of why there’s tonal cohesion in the film. Like, it feels like the film is one thing because the score holds it together in a lot of ways. I have to say to my editor, Alex O’Flinn. He’s brilliant. I find that I really gravitate towards people with strong opinions because when they have a strong opinion, it allows me to know what my opinion is. Like, if they say something, I’ll know quickly if I agree or not.
Eva Victor: So I like when people aren’t very shy or trying to tiptoe around me. I like when they’re honest. So I found something real. Some real honest ones. But, you know, doing a film this size is. People have to do it because they care about it. You know. No one’s there for the money. So in a lot of ways, it actually assembles people who are quite passionate, though I would love to, going forward, offer everyone a little bit more something a little closer to their rates. But it was a good group. It was a group of people who cared, which is so important.
Pedro Lima: Thank you so much
Sorry, Baby is available to stream or purchase at your retailer of choice.
Learn more about the film at the A24 site for the title.
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