Mason Reeves has witnessed something horrible, and attendees at this year’s Sundance Film Festival will witness the consequences in the new film Josephine. The prestigious annual event unveiled first looks at several of its 2026 official selections this morning, including the upcoming thriller, which casts the young actress as the titular eight-year-old who finds herself feeling lost after what she saw occur in Golden Gate Park. Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan are also set to star as her parents, appearing in a new image that highlights the helplessness of the child’s situation. Held in her mother’s arms with a thousand-yard stare, it teases a dramatic exploration of how a child deals with noticing something too horrific to comprehend at such a young age.

Josephine was directed by Beth de Araújo as the much-anticipated follow-up to her divisive, shell-shocking 2022 feature horror debut Soft & Quiet, which earned a Certified Fresh 84% mark on Rotten Tomatoes. All the attention from her previous effort allowed her to bring in some even bigger names this time around, with Tatum coming off of the acclaimed Roofman and gearing up for a return as Gambit in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, and Chan previously starring in Gareth Edwards‘ ambitious The Creator. They’re joined by a strong supporting cast, including Philip Ettinger, Syra McCarthy, and Eleanore Pienta.

‘Josephine’ Comes From a Frighteningly Real Place for Araújo

Rounding out the main creative team for the thriller are producers David Kaplan, Josh Peters, Marina Stabile, Mark H. Rapaport, and Crystine Zhang. They all helped bring to life an idea that Araújo has spent over a decade developing based on a very real story that haunted her childhood. In an interview with SFGATE last year, she said that the idea all stemmed from an incident when she was eight, like Josephine, and went to the park to play with her father, only to hear distressed screams for help and see her father chase off an assailant. Even if the overall story of Josephine is different, it channels real and disturbing feelings of fear that she had to process at a young age that aren’t often explored on the big screen.

Josephine will make its world premiere at Sundance, which runs from January 22 through February 1 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. Check out the first image above.

via Collider