Berlinale 2026 – Josephine ★★★★

Released: TBC (2026)

Director: Beth de Araujo

Starring: Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Syra McCarthy

Winner of both the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and the Audience Award: Dramatic at Sundance, and selected for the Berlinale 2026 programme, Josephine is an American drama that takes on an extraordinarily difficult subject. The film centres on a court case stemming from a brutal sexual assault in Golden Gate Park, witnessed by Josephine, an eight-year-old played by newcomer Mason Reeves.

Ambitious and intelligently written, Josephine examines the unpredictable aftershocks of trauma and the helplessness felt by the survivors and those close to them. In her second feature following 2022’s critically acclaimed Soft & Quiet, writer-director Beth de Araújo doesn’t overstate or sensationalise the material. She gets straight to the point, opening with Josephine and her dad out for a run, then quickly plunges into the moment that changes everything: the little girl witnessing a rape. The camera doesn’t cut away. It refuses to soften the violence inflicted on the victim or the shock experienced by Josephine, who is left frightened, powerless, and confused. De Araújo carefully guides the audience through that confusion and Josephine’s gradual realization of what she has seen.

The film is about trauma, but is equally concerned with the cold, often “inhumane” American justice system. In order to seek justice for the victim, Sandra (Syra McCarthy), a child, must face the rapist in court and answer questions about sex, consent, and kinks before lawyers and jurors. Josephine carries the intensity of a deeply personal project, which makes sense given Araújo’s own connection to the material with herself a witness to sexual abuse, though she did not have to testify in court. She went on to spend years researching the treatment of young witnesses in the US legal system.

What gives the film additional weight is the way it pairs a timely social message with a close, painful study of parenting under pressure. Josephine’s parents Damien and Claire, played by Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan respectively, are desperate to protect their daughter but have no clear idea how to help her. They cancel her therapy appointment, move house, and lurch from one uncertain decision to another, never quite knowing what Josephine needs. They are as lost as Josephine, and their inability to support her only accentuates the sense of damage done. Tatum is especially effective as an affectionate, very empathetic father, bringing warmth and natural charm while never losing sight of the fear and pain beneath the surface.

At times, the screenplay falters by repeating a few tropes, such as the imagined presence of the rapist (played by a haunting Philip Ettinger), Some parts of the family drama also feel unnecessary –disconnected from the film’s central concerns. But there is far more to admire than to fault. Josephine is a tense, unsettling depiction of a child forced into premature maturity by harrowing events. She must confront sex and predatory violence long before she is old enough to make sense of them. Watching that loss of innocence unfold is the film’s most devastating thread. The pain radiates outward to her family too, and speaks to the sad reality of how women are made to feel unsafe in a world saturated with male violence.

Josephine is a tough and heartbreaking watch, but it is also a meticulous snapshot of a complex psychological state and a powerful piece of social filmmaking. The film’s message hits home with sobering clarity: justice for victims of sexual assault remains far harder to obtain than it should be.