Barry Jenkins Inspired Eva Victor to Direct Her Feature Debut ‘Sorry, Baby’

Name: Eva Victor

Sundance project: Victor wrote, directed and stars in “Sorry, Baby,” her feature directorial debut exploring the aftermath of trauma. The film, produced by Barry Jenkins, costars Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges and is set in the world of Northeast academia.

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Notable past credits: As an actress, Victor starred in “Billions” and a music video for Lucy Dacus. Victor broke out writing satire and comedic shorts for online outlets like Comedy Central, Reductress, and social media.

Eva Victor
Eva Victor

”The film is about a character who’s in the aftermath of a really hard time in her life,” says Victor of “Sorry, Baby,” premiering at Sundance in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. She leads the film as a young academic navigating a traumatic event. “It’s a really personal story. It’s about trying to heal after something really bad happens, and trying to unstick yourself when everyone else’s lives move forward, and you’re trying to make sense of what happened to you.”

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Victor wrote the film during COVID-19 while staying at a cabin in Maine with her cat (who inspired a feline character in the film). “I kind of wrote it like how in therapy you write a letter that you’ll never send,” says Victor. “And then eventually I was like — let’s send it.”

First, she sent it to “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins, one of the film’s producers. Jenkins had reached out to Victor over Instagram asking if she had written any feature length scripts; his Pastel production company was interested in reading them. And it was Jenkins who encouraged Victor, who leads the film, to direct the project herself.

“I didn’t know if I could do it,” says Victor. “And Barry, my producer, was like — the comedy videos that you’re making, you are directing those, and you are making every choice in those in the way that a director would. And so go think about it; go spend time with your story and think about if you want to direct this. And then if you are sure you don’t, come back and say that.”

Spoiler alert: Victor realized that she did want to direct the script, and had a strong sense of what she wanted the film to look like.

“I think a lot of that time before I declared, ‘yes, I want to direct this,’ was trying to get over the fraudulent thing of not having gone to film school,” says Victor, who studied acting at Northwestern. “But then I realized, yeah, I know how to do this. I just need to surround myself with people who have the technical skills and more experience than me to help me put it together.”

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Late last year, Victor was traveling in Japan when she found out that her first film was headed to Sundance.

“I looked at my phone when I woke up at 8 a.m., and there were a bunch of missed calls and emails,” adds Victor, shortly before heading off to participate in a panel featuring first-time filmmakers. “It was a great morning — it was a great wake-up email, call, everything.”

Eva Victor
Eva Victor

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