A Conversation with Eleanore Pienta, Syra McCarthy, Dana Millican & Josh Peters (JOSEPHINE)

Josephine is the sensation of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Writer-director Beth de Araújo’s sophomore feature won both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition—a rare double that places the film in the company of CODA, Minari, Whiplash, Fruitvale Station, and Precious, four of which went on to receive Best Picture nominations at the Academy Awards. The jury citation praised the film “for the depth and nuance of storytelling, for the delicate and elegant execution of a challenging subject matter, the skilled direction of performance from the cast, the humanistic view of the filmmaker and how they withheld judgment of those dealing with the impact of victimization.”

The film follows eight-year-old Josephine (newcomer Mason Reeves, in a stunning debut) who accidentally witnesses a sexual assault during an early morning run through San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with her father, Damien (Channing Tatum, delivering the rawest performance of his career). In the aftermath, Josephine acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety while the adults around her—including her mother Claire (Gemma Chan)—struggle to console her. The film is drawn from de Araújo’s own childhood experiences and explores the psychological complexities of being a child who cannot fully understand what she has witnessed.

De Araújo, a San Francisco native of Chinese-American and Brazilian heritage, was featured in Filmmaker Magazine‘s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She developed Josephine at the 2018 Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs, where she met her cinematographer, and received the SFFILM Rainin Filmmaking Grant. The project was 11 years in the making. Unable to secure financing for Josephine initially, de Araújo pivoted to make her feature debut with Soft and Quiet (2022), a harrowing one-take thriller following a group of white supremacist women as their evening escalates into violence. That film, shot in a single continuous take, premiered at SXSW, was acquired by Blumhouse, and earned de Araújo a Gotham nomination for Breakthrough Director. Its success unlocked the ability to finally make Josephine.

Tatum and Chan also serve as producers, and their involvement helped the film get made at the scale it required. De Araújo ran a care-centered set with daily check-ins and trauma-informed counselors built into the production. At the red carpet premiere, I spoke with four members of the cast and crew: Eleanore Pienta, who plays Kerry and previously appeared in de Araújo’s Soft and Quiet; Syra McCarthy, a Bay Area native and filmmaker who plays Sandra; Dana Millican, another Soft and Quiet alum who plays Miss Hoffman; and producer Josh Peters, who has been with de Araújo since her first feature. These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

 

ELEANORE PIENTA (Kerry)

 Hammer to Nail: You are also a director—Ada premiered at the New York Film Festival, Master of the House at NewNext—and you are working on your first feature, Eleanor and Nadine. How does your experience behind the camera inform your acting choices?

Eleanore Pienta: I would say that the choices in front of the camera inform the way that I direct, because I think it helps me to know how one needs to get into the scene or the role. That becomes a little bit more clear because I have the experience in front of the camera.

HTN: You were in Beth’s first film, Soft and Quiet, playing one of the white supremacist women. What is the through line between that collaboration and now Josephine?

EP: The through line is Beth. I would follow her to the end of the earth because I think she has an artistic vision and integrity that I respect so deeply. I learned so much from her. I am truly so proud and inspired by her. I love her.

 HTN: Soft and Quiet was shot as one continuous take and dealt with escalating violence among women. Josephine deals with the aftermath of witnessed violence. How did Beth’s approach differ between these two projects?

EP: It was so funny because in Soft and Quiet, basically we had four days of rehearsal, and then cameras were rolling. She is not on set. She is not telling us what to do. So there is a total trust that she gave to us and that we gave to her. That carried through for Josephine as well. Of course, she could call cut and then give a note. But honestly, I love working with her because of her trust in the actors she works with. It feels like, okay great, I have the freedom to do what is in my body and mind, and that is a real gift. She is not trying to control it—she is trying to elevate it, which is amazing.

 SYRA McCARTHY (Sandra)

Hammer to Nail: You are a Bay Area native. Josephine is set in San Francisco. What does it mean to be a part of telling a story rooted in your own community?

Syra McCarthy: Beyond special. I also live in the Sunset District, right next to Golden Gate Park. Beth, the director, grew up just on the other side of the park. So having it set around that neighborhood is really special to me. I kind of grew up making movies and commercials with a lot of the film crew in the Bay, and a lot of that crew was on this shoot. So it felt like a homecoming in a way.

HTN: You are also a co-founder of the Soft Hold Collective, supporting women, trans, and non-binary freelancers in film. How does that care-centered approach to the industry align with the way Beth ran the set?

SM: Having a set run by mostly women was amazing—I think in order to tell really vulnerable stories and deep, hard stories, you need to create a really safe space. The energy and the care that was put into building that space, the conversations beforehand, just holding each other energetically—it made it possible for us to do deep work.

HTN: You are a filmmaker yourself—your work has screened at South by Southwest. How does your experience behind the camera inform your work as an actor?

SM: In many ways. Technical ways—I know I need to stand here for focus. When they are setting focus, I am holding. Whatever I can do to make everyone else’s jobs easier, because filmmaking is so hard and it takes a village. Knowing all that and doing little things here and there. And then trying to also let go of my filmmaker brain so I can just be really present in the acting. I separate that when the camera is rolling.

DANA MILLICAN (Miss Hoffman)

Hammer to Nail: You were also in Soft and Quiet. This is your second collaboration with Beth. What keeps bringing you back to her projects?

Dana Millican: She always writes really risky, intense, ballsy material. Every time I read a Beth script, I am always like, “Oh. Oh no. Oh, is she going to? Oh, she is. Okay.” She pushes limits. I find that scary and also invigorating and fun to tackle.

HTN: Beth creates very specific set environments—daily check-ins, trauma-informed counselors. As a returning collaborator, how has her process evolved from Soft and Quiet to Josephine?

DM: I do not know that her process has really evolved. I think maybe she has got more infrastructure around her, at least on the Josephine set. Maybe she is a bit more supported because it was quite a scrappy production, Soft and Quiet. But I do not know that I saw that she evolved.

HTN: The film is 11 years in the making. Beth started writing it long before Soft and Quiet. Did you know about Josephine when you were working on that first film?

DM: Yeah, I did. She mentioned that Soft and Quiet was not the one she really wanted to shoot, but it was one that she could shoot because of all the constraints of the time. But yeah, I did know about it.

HTN: What was it like working with Mason Reeves, who had never acted in a film before?

DM: It was tough because it is a really tough scene. I play a pretty adversarial character to her. It was hard to see this tiny little baby girl and speak to her so sternly and advocate for my client. That was tough. But she was so professional and so present. She was a great scene partner.

JOSH PETERS (Producer)

Hammer to Nail: Beth came out of Sundance—she met her DP at the Directors Lab. As someone who has been in the indie ecosystem for years, what role do these institutional pathways play in identifying talent?

Josh Peters: It is everything. It is the garden from which everyone grows. That is my mission as a producer. To help water that garden as much as I can. Many of the seminal filmmakers I have worked with came from those labs.

HTN: Beth’s first film, Soft and Quiet, was acquired by Blumhouse and got her a Gotham nomination. At what point did you come aboard Josephine, and what made you want to champion her second feature?

JP: Beth called me. We were trying to make Josephine for a long time. She called me and said, “I have got this small little movie I want to make called Soft and Quiet. Could you produce it with me?” So I hopped on Soft and Quiet and did that film. It is so hard as a first-time filmmaker just to have vision and ambition and to some degree budget. So we had to make Soft and Quiet in order to unlock the ability to make this. I have been fortunate to be with her for her first two movies, and each is its own thing, but she is just a powerhouse. I am so proud of her. I am so proud to be a part of her journey.

HTN: Beth ran a care-centered set with trauma support built into the production. As a producer, how do you help facilitate that?

JP: I think it leads with the artist and the director. She was the boss, and we tried to lift her up and build a platform for what she wanted to do. It is just about drowning out the white noise and supporting her in what she wants. That was all her driving that. You create an ecosystem where it feels safe to interact with actors and all that stuff. That is the holy grail as a producer.

HTN: Channing and Gemma are also producers on the film. Can you talk about your collaboration?

JP: They were so generous with their talents and their time. The reality is, they do not sign up for this movie, this movie does not get made on the scale that it does. And they were generous to step back and allow Mason to take center stage, which we will see in a few moments. It is a beautiful thing, and I hope there are a lot more superstars like those two who are willing to do something like this. It is certainly helpful and meaningful for producers like myself.

– Jack Schenker (@YUNGOCUPOTIS)