Eva Victor and her Sorry, Baby producer Adele Romanski joined comedian Rose Matafeo at an Edinburgh International Film Festival event on Saturday.
The trio appeared at Tollcross Central Hall for a discussion on the creation of Victor's Fest favorite feature film and Eiff's opening film.
The film follows Victor as Agnes, a literature professor coming to terms with a traumatic life event. While Agnes navigates the mental and physical pain caused, she leans on her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who reveals to Agnes that she's expecting a baby via a sperm donor. The film, also starring Lucas Hedges, Louis Cancelmi, and John Carroll Lynch, premiered to rave reviews at Sundance this year before being picked up by A24 for a June theatrical release.
A Matafeo element (mastermind behind the brilliant BBC romance series Stamped ) was keen to dissect that Victor and Romanski had an intimacy coordinator and a mental health coordinator on set.
“I don’t know if that’s something that’s happening yet,” Romanski, best known for producing Moonlight (2016) and Budget (2022) said of bringing in a mental health coordinator: “But it’s not happening that much in the States, to be honest.”
“Maybe you’re the boom operator, and you come to work every day, and there’s no way of knowing what you’re about to be exposed to,” he continued. “There are variables in your day-to-day work that you can’t anticipate how it might affect you or someone else in a unique way based on your lived experience. I wish it was a position we just had on our staff, the same thing you have with your camera assistants and your craft service person, because you never know when something’s going to screw up, you know?”
Eva Victor in 'Sorry, Baby'.
Mia Cioffi Henry/Courtesy of the Sundance Institute
Victor clarified that it was the film's intimacy coordinator, Kayleigh Kane, who helped choreograph a scene in which Agnes has a panic attack. "The biggest lesson from her that I learned that was very comforting was [that] a lot of making a scene feel really intimate is about breath and desexualizing it," they told the audience.
Romanski added that he doesn't understand why there's a pushback against the role in Hollywood and on international film sets: "I've never had a director personally push back. I think it's welcome. Support is welcome. Those scenes are difficult for those in front of and behind the camera, so having someone there to help break it down, to professionalize it, is [something] I find myself wanting and really craving from my directors. Who doesn't want that?"
Victor said, "It also doesn't make sense to make a movie about trying to find safety and not feeling safe while doing it. Like, what would that be?"
Amid further discussion about the film's score, messaging, and casting decisions, Victor revealed that they've overcome a bout of imposter syndrome. "I went to a school where there was a very specific person who was allowed to try directing, and I didn't feel like I was a part of that," they said. "I thought it had to be this thing that you were born wanting to do... I discovered film in my mid-20s, and a lot of people go to school for film long before that. So I felt late, and I felt fraudulent, and I think a lot of those feelings masked a real desire to do it."
“It took a bit of layering,” they continued. “And honestly, just asking the simple question of, ‘What do I see when I close my eyes?’ Once I realized [that] I want to figure out what this looks like, all I needed were tools.”
Romanski admitted he needed more coffee when Matafeo asked him to answer: How difficult is it to make a movie these days?
“I’m finding it very, very difficult right now for films that live on the $10 million [budget],” he said. “It’s fine to take the risks of an interesting cast dynamic or new voices or debut directors, and that works. But when you want to get something with a little more scale, a little more scope, actors we know and love, directors who’ve done work before, people feel like there’s no bottom in the theatrical market right now. And so, that space is very scary.”
"I mean, I'm not afraid of that, just to be clear," he added, "but it's scary for people who have to take the risk financially."
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 runs from August 14-20.
