Goodfellas picks up international sales for Beth de Araújo’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Josephine, starring Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan.
When a film wins both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at Sundance 2026, people in the industry stop what they are doing.
They put down their cold brew.
They close their laptops.
They start making calls.
That is exactly what happened in Park City with Josephine, the shattering new drama from director Beth de Araújo. Now, with Goodfellas boarding as the international sales agent, the film that broke hearts in Utah is heading to Berlin and beyond. The Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Josephine may be the most talked-about film of the early 2026-27 awards season, and the conversation is only getting louder.
Goodfellas Steps In for Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner Josephine
International buyers had been circling Josephine since the moment the Park City buzz began. The double Sundance win made the question of where the sales rights would land one of the most watched deals in the market. Goodfellas answered that question, picking up international sales rights while CAA Media Finance and WME Independent are co-representing North American rights and are in active conversations with multiple buyers.
The timing could not be sharper. The film is set to play in the main competition at the Berlin Film Festival, its international premiere, giving it a second major stage before a global audience. For a film this personal, this layered, and this raw, the attention feels not just deserved but inevitable.
The Story Behind the Screen
Beth de Araújo did not arrive at this story from the outside. Josephine is drawn from her own childhood trauma, and that intimate source is exactly what makes the film cut so deep.
The story follows 8-year-old Josephine, played by a remarkable Mason Reeves, who witnesses a violent crime in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park while spending the day with her father. Channing Tatum plays that father, a role that reportedly shows a side of him rarely seen on screen. Gemma Chan plays the mother. Together, the couple must reckon not only with their daughter’s trauma but with their own fears, their own silences, and their own limits.
This is not easy territory. But the reviews coming out of Sundance speak to Araújo’s ability to hold the difficult subject with extraordinary care. No false comfort. No tidy resolution. Josephine has emotional outbursts at school. She struggles. And then, slowly, she begins to find something that looks like wisdom. The film trusts its audience to sit with that.
Awards Season Comparisons That Are Hard to Ignore
Film nerds and awards watchers, gather around. You are going to want to hear this.
The double Sundance win for Josephine places it in rare and very impressive company. Minari, which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in 2021, went on to earn a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. CODA, which achieved the same double in 2021, won Best Picture outright. Both films were about families. Both were deeply personal. Both defied easy categorization.
Sound familiar?
With a raft of critics already placing Josephine on early awards prediction lists, the trajectory feels meaningful. Not guaranteed. Film is never guaranteed. But the conditions are striking.
Beth de Araújo, a Director Building Something Real
This is Araújo’s second feature. Her debut, Soft & Quiet, premiered at SXSW in 2022 and was released by Momentum Pictures to critical attention. That film established her as a filmmaker unafraid of discomfort, someone who uses the frame to force a reckoning rather than offer escape.
Josephine expands that ambition considerably. The subject matter is more personal. The canvas is larger. The cast is one that will get the film into conversations it might otherwise have to wait years to join. Having Tatum and Chan attached is not just a marketing asset. It is a statement about the kind of storytelling that draws actors of their caliber.
Producers on the film include David Kaplan, Josh Peters, Araújo herself, Marina Stabile, Tatum, Chan, Mark H. Rapaport, and Crystine Zhang.
For more on the history of films that launched at Sundance and went on to define Oscar seasons, Sundance’s own editorial archive is an excellent place to explore.
Flavors That Define a Film Like This
Here is where the conversation gets interesting for those of us who think about culture through the lens of taste and experience. A film like Josephine is not a blockbuster. It does not arrive with explosions or franchise mythology. It arrives the way a perfectly aged Burgundy does. Quietly. Confidently. With something to say that only reveals itself slowly.
It is the kind of film you discuss over a long dinner in a West Village restaurant or a late evening at a Tokyo wine bar. The kind that makes you feel something you do not have words for immediately but find yourself circling back to days later. Its emotional richness, its layered performances, its refusal to resolve what should not be resolved are what give it that complex, lingering finish. Like a great single malt, it rewards patience.
And yes, if you are the sort of person who finds yourself reaching for a particular playlist or a particular glass when processing something big, Josephine will give you a lot to process.
FAQ: Josephine
Q: What is Josephine about? A: Josephine is a drama directed by Beth de Araújo about an 8-year-old girl named Josephine who witnesses a violent crime in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The film follows her and her parents, played by Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan, as they navigate the aftermath and confront their own fears around trauma and healing.
Q: What awards did Josephine win at Sundance? A: Josephine won both the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic and the Audience Award Dramatic at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, making it one of only a handful of films to achieve this rare double in recent memory.
Q: Where can I see Josephine internationally? A: Following its world premiere in Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Competition section, Josephine will have its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where it is set to compete in the main competition. Goodfellas is handling international sales, with North American rights being pursued through CAA Media Finance and WME Independent.
WJosephine’s Awards Season
Josephine is the kind of film that demands to be seen on a big screen. Whether it follows the Oscar trail blazed by Minari and CODA remains to be seen, but the pieces are in place in a way that feels rare. Goodfellas bringing it to Berlin is the right next step. What happens after that may depend on whether distributors worldwide have the courage to back a film this honest.
They should. Watch this one closely.
