Trauma specialist

Eva Victor's Sorry, Baby has won acclaim for its poignant, funny story about the healing power of friendship.

- BY RUSSELL BAILLIE

Eva Victor sounds genuinely chuffed: “Oh my god, beautiful” – when the Listener holds up the page in the New Zealand International Film Festival programme featuring Sorry, Baby. The story of Agnes, an English literature postgraduate student whose life is derailed by a sexual assault by a trusted tutor is Victor's debut film, and it has been a festival fixture all year.

Our Zoom call has found the New York actor, writer and now director in between festivals in Edinburgh – where Sorry, Baby had a Q&A panel hosted by one Rose Matafeo – and attending screenings in London.

Since debuting at Sundance at the beginning of the year, then heading to Cannes, Sorry, Baby has won acclaim for its frank, poignant, touching and occasionally bleakly funny story. One which, with its purposefully jumbled chronology, treats the nonlinear half-life of trauma in a nonlinear way over a five-year period. It's also one about the healing power of friendship, as well as cat ownership. Oh, and a stranger coming to the rescue in the middle of an anxiety attack by making you a sandwich.

It's pushed Victor into the spotlight, but they might have got there anyway. The 31-year-old has been an actor for some years, with a regular role on the latter seasons of Wall St drama