A film shot across the Bay Area, with all but a few scenes in San Francisco, has become one of the biggest awards-season stories of the year, and Tuesday it finally came home. “Josephine,” starring Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, and 10-year-old newcomer Mason Reeves, made its Bay Area premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival, arriving with a rare Sundance double win and a release date already locked in for November.
A San Francisco Story, Told by a San Francisco Director
“Josephine” is a San Francisco-set drama centered on the fallout a family experiences after witnessing a traumatic event, according to KTVU. The film is inspired by director Beth de Araújo's own childhood experience in Golden Gate Park, the station reports, a detail that gives the project an unusually personal foundation for a studio-adjacent drama built around a movie star like Channing Tatum. That inciting moment traces back to when de Araújo was eight years old and, with her father, overheard a sexual assault taking place in the park — an experience she first spoke about publicly in 2019 at a storytelling event hosted by The Moth, according to SFGATE.
De Araújo was raised in the Richmond District herself, studied sociology at UC Berkeley, and later earned an MFA from the American Film Institute Conservatory, according to the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon. Her family still resides in the same San Francisco home where she grew up, the outlet notes. That connection intersected with the production: de Araújo passed out casting flyers at the Clement Street Farmers Market while casting the film, per the same account.
A Farmers Market Discovery Becomes the Film's Breakout Star
Mason Reeves, the film's 10-year-old co-star, is a San Francisco native who was about seven or eight when de Araújo discovered her at the Clement Street Farmers Market in the Richmond District while the director was passing out casting flyers, the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon reports. It's the kind of local-discovery story that film festivals love to tell, and it underscores how deeply embedded the production was in the neighborhood that shaped its director.
That embeddedness was logistical as well as emotional. “Josephine” was filmed over 35 days between April and June 2024 across the Bay Area, with all but a few scenes in San Francisco, including at the park's horseshoe courts, Fort Point and the Broadway Tunnel, and the production took part in the city's Scene in San Francisco Film Rebate Incentive Program, according to SFGATE.
From Sundance Sweep to a Mill Valley Homecoming
The film arrived at Mill Valley already carrying serious momentum. At the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, “Josephine” won both the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award, making it the first film to win both top Sundance prizes since “CODA” in 2021, per the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon — a film that went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. KTVU reports more broadly that the film has won a Sundance award and is generating awards-season buzz as it heads toward its theatrical run.
At the 49th Mill Valley Film Festival on Tuesday, de Araújo was honored with the MVFF Award for Bay Area Rising Star and was slated to receive the Elton Creation Special Jury Prize, with “Josephine” screening at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, according to the Mill Valley Film Festival. The festival, running October 1 through 11, showcased 94 feature films and 80 shorts from 45 countries this year, with 61 percent of selected titles directed by female or non-binary filmmakers, according to ARThound. “Josephine” isn't the only homegrown-adjacent title drawing crowds at this year's festival — Hoodline previously reported on opening night's Mill Valley festivities centered on actor Sam Rockwell.
A Long Road From Script to Screen
De Araújo's path to the premiere took 11 years, and she participated in a 2018 Sundance Lab.
De Araújo's 2022 feature debut, “Soft & Quiet,” premiered at SXSW and was distributed by Blumhouse. That film earned her a Gotham Award nomination for Breakthrough Director, the outlet reports.
What's Next for Josephine
Independent distributor Sumerian Pictures acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Josephine” in February 2026 and has scheduled a limited theatrical release for November 20, with a nationwide expansion following on December 4, according to the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon.
