‘Sorry, Baby’ Director Eva Victor on Why Making Her Debut Film Was a Form of ‘Therapy’
Eva Victor is a comedian and social media star. But during the pandemic, she said time slowed down and she transitioned from comedy to “falling in love with watching movies.” All that led her to her directorial debut “Sorry, Baby,” a drama about trauma — but more importantly about friendship and joy.
Going through the process of writing it and making it, Victor said at the IndieWire Studio, presented by Dropbox, was a form of “therapy” for what she described as a very personal story.
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“It was definitely in a lot of ways an attempt to put myself through some sort of therapy, it’s a story about healing, and in some meta ways, writing was it’s an attempt at that, making it was an attempt at that,” she said. “The film is about this serious thing in some ways but it’s about the time afterwards and a friendship that gets you through that. A lot of the film is about trying to find joy, and that’s what our characters are doing together in the film.”
The logline for “Sorry, Baby” is simply, “Something bad happened to Agnes, but life goes on…for everyone around her at least.” It’s a film about two friends, one stymied by a personal crisis and the other maturing and starting a family. But though it deals with heavy themes, it threads a needle and finds some uncomfortably funny moments.
“The film really does punch up at the people who are evil or boringly rude and really protects the lives of the people who are doing their best,” Victor said. “That’s where the comedy lives, in the joy of the friendship and making fun of the people who are cruel and not the ones we love.”
Victor’s co-stars Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges joined her in the IndieWire Studio, and they were each wowed by the material and the honesty that Victor brought to the script.
“It felt lived in. The thing I was really excited to explore was friendship that’s lived in for a really long time, the challenge is how do you do that with someone you don’t know…yet,” Ackie said about playing best friends with Victor. “It just felt like this would be an environment where I could explore that quiet performance that isn’t about stretching out and changing exactly who you are but connecting with the people around you.”
“I felt like it reminded me of things I loved, but at the same time it felt like its own thing,” Hedges added. “It reminded me of certain films that are really comforting for me and what I’m looking to be a part of, and yet it felt innovative, like you weren’t trying to do those things. You were just trying to be really honest with yourself.”
“Sorry, Baby” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It is seeking distribution.
Dropbox is proud to partner with IndieWire and the Sundance Film Festival. In 2025, 68% of feature films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival used Dropbox in their film production. Dropbox helps filmmakers and creative teams find, organize, and secure all the files that are important to any project.
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