A lit student, a thesis, a supervisor... what could go wrong?

 

We saw... 'Sorry, Baby'...

Inspired by a dark period of the life of the writer-director-actor Eva Victor, the film follows a grad student-turned-professor navigating the disorienting aftermath of sexual assault by her own advisor. That she trusted, read and valued...

As Victor, 31, told in interviews, “It's not such a simple thing to have people connect to a film like this.”

It probably depends on the viewers...

I was a literary student myself in my youth, and I was a lecturer and worked with very sensitive and vulnerable women students.

I also know women who have been through similar stories, meeting an older man and trusting them as a mentor, and they... only saw them as pieces of meat or convenient mirrors to their ego.

Eva has read her supervisor / professor's first book, she has admired it. and he has just divorced, and thinks he feels good to receive compliments from his best student... But instead of leaving at that, compliment, reading, advice... he crossed a line.

But when assault happens in such a situation, women do not only feel violated in their body, but also in their trust, in their beliefs, and in that sort of invisible space that is a protection between them and a person of the opposite sex that they really respect. And they really didn't imagine that this space could be broken, reduced, and annihilated by someone they trusted. And that's really difficult to overcome.

Obviously, society makes us think that women victims of assault, harassment or ambiguous and confusing feeling led by an older, more powerful men are 'penetrated' or betrayed, that it's violent acts, but they can heal quickly because it's a physical thing, like breaking a bone. But it's actually very much more of a trauma in the brain, it's like surviving a car crash; your sense of safety disappears.

And I think, obviously, the fact that it happens in a world full of ideas and literature adds a layer of depth...

I'm still haunted by it. A very profound film...

I hope male university lecturers will watch it.

Bravo Eva Victor!