Beth de Araújo, who won two prizes at Sundance with "Josephine" and is presenting the film at the Berlinale on Friday, said her heart-wrenching drama highlights how the lack of accountability for sexual abuse perpetrators "creates more silence" from victims and survivors.
Echoing her tearful speech at Sundance where she received both the grand jury prize and the audience award, de Araújo said during the Berlinale press conference: "There needs to be accountability. It creates more silence, more shame and leaving survivors to have to heal completely on their own, the less accountability that there is towards the perpetrators, the pedophiles and the rapists."
"The shame needs to be on them," she continued, sitting alongside the film's stars Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan, who are also producers.
The film is work of autobiographical fiction from de Araújo about an 8-year-old -- played by newcomer Mason Reeves -- who witnesses a rape in Golden Gate Park. Tatum and Chan play Josephine's parents, who must navigate the little girl's trauma amid the quest for justice for the survivor.
De Araújo said "Josephine" was 12 years in the making and was meant to be her first film. After she faced difficulties to finance it, she made her feature debut with the single-shot thriller "Soft & Quiet," which debuted at SXSW and was subsequently acquired by Blumhouse.
While she developed the script for "Josephine," de Araújo said she "trained to become certified to be a witness advocate in hospitals for rape victims."
Tatum, meanwhile, said the film resonated with him as the father of a 12-year-old girl. "That conversation that I had with Josephine underneath the bridge is a conversation that I've had with my daughter," Tatum said. "You will never be in trouble with me if you protect yourself. If someone is doing something that you are asking them not to do and they don't listen, you have full right to protect yourself and I will back you forever. Don't fuck with my daughter."
He also admitted that ultimately, he just wanted to work with de Araújo after meeting her. "Beth wrote this and I read it and I just wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be a part of something honest and beautiful and important," he said.
In an interview with Variety ahead of the film's presentation at the Berlinale, Chan -- who was the first person to board the project after de Araújo sent her the script in 2019 -- said she connected to the film emotionally because she witnessed a fatal stabbing in London in 2012 and bravely decided to testify in court.
One of the film's main producers, David Kaplan, told Variety at an on-stage fireside chat in Berlin that "Josephine" was nearly impossible to finance despite de Araújo's rising profile.
"99% of the people we went to and said, 'Would you like to make this film?' said, 'Absolutely not,'" Kaplan recalls.
"Resistance, concern, skepticism about the commerciality, worry from parents about what this film is and worrying that it's too dark," Kaplan said of the difficulties to finance the movie. "I think there was a lot of concern that who is this movie for? How is this movie going to be? Is it commercial?"
He also pointed to an "inherent bias against films that are perhaps more geared towards women and assault survivors."
The film was just acquired for the U.S. by Sumerian Pictures in a competitive seven-figure deal.
"Josephine" is produced by Kaplan, Josh Peters, Beth de Araújo, Marina Stabile, Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Mark H. Rapaport, and Crystine Zhang, with executive producers Emanuel Nuñez and Jordan Rapaport.
