*
Director Beth de Araujo drew on personal experience
*
Child actor Mason Reeves praised for her talent
*
Film explores impact of witnessing a sexual assault
(Adds quotes from red carpet in paragraphs 8-9)
By Miranda Murray and Hanna Rantala
BERLIN, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Channing Tatum recalled on Friday how he has had conversations with his daughter similar to those depicted in his role as a father in the sexual assault drama “Josephine,” which is competing for the Berlin Film Festival’s top prize.
The film opens with Tatum’s character, Damien, going on a morning run with his 8-year-old daughter, Josephine, played by newcomer Mason Reeves.
Josephine runs ahead of her father and inadvertently witnesses a sexual assault, drawing her family into an uncomfortable court case while she tries to make sense of what she saw and how it fits into her budding view of the world.
“I promise you, that conversation that I had with Josephine underneath the bridge is a conversation that I’ve had with my daughter,” he told journalists at a press conference.
He recounted buying ice cream for his daughter after she got into a fight at her preschool with a boy who was bullying her friend.
“If someone is doing something that you are asking them not to do and they don’t listen, you have the full right to protect yourself. I will back you up forever,” he recalled telling his now 12-year-old daughter.
REAL LIFE INSPIRATION
Director Beth de Araujo said the film, which is based on her real-life experience interrupting a sexual assault with her father in San Francisco, draws on her hypervigilance as a person afraid of male aggression.
“I was wanting to see what it would be like if I took it to an extreme level through the lens of an 8-year-old girl,” she said ahead of the screening in Berlin on Friday night.
De Araujo said that she hoped the positive reception at Berlin and Sundance, where it won a special jury prize, meant that she could make another film. “That’s always the goal,” she said.
The director said that she found Mason while scouting for a girl to play Josephine at a farmers’ market in San Francisco.
“Working with Mason was not a challenge. She was a gift. She’s an incredibly talented actor who is so emotionally and intellectually intelligent for her years,” said de Araujo at the press conference earlier Friday.
Tatum and Gemma Chan, who plays Josephine’s mother, Claire, said they were given time ahead of shooting to hang out and make Mason feel comfortable.
“We had a little competition, didn’t we? Like who could hang on to the monkey bars the longest,” said Chan.
“Mason won.”
(Reporting by Miranda Murray and Hanna Rantala: Editing by Sharon Singleton and Nick Zieminski)
