Channing Tatum, Olivia Wilde and Charli xcx premiere movies at Sundance
- Last updated: January 26, 2026 | 10:32 ..
The Sundance Film Festival was in full swing on Friday in Park City, with Channing Tatum, Olivia Wilde and Charli xcx movies premiering back-to-back at the storied Eccles Theatre in the evening. First up was “Josephine,” writer-director Beth De Araújo’s raw drama about an 8-year-old girl (Mason Reeves) whose life and sense of safety is upended after she witnesses a physical assault in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Tatum and Gemma Chan play the parents who are unsure how to help her navigate these new emotions and fears. The film, which is part of the US Dramatic Competition, is based on De Araújo’s own experience of seeing something scarring at that age.
There wasn’t a seat to spare, and over 400 people on the waitlist were unable to get in. Afterward the crowd gave a long standing ovation as the filmmaker and actors came onstage for a Q&A. Araújo discovered Reeves at a San Francisco farmer’s market, where she told her mother she was casting for someone to play Tatum and Chan’s daughter. Reeves said one of her favourite parts of the film was a scene in which she and Tatum eat a jelly doughnut.
“I only ate the outside and fed the jelly part to him,” Reeves said.
Tatum chimed in: “That is true.”
He also praised his young co-star, saying “how good is she?” He watched the film for the first time with the Sundance audience and said he cried “five, six, seven times.”
The film also features a supporting turn from Charli xcx, who was a fan of Araki and whose “Brat” album cover was partially inspired by the title credits to his film “Smiley Face.” When she heard about this new movie, he said, she asked if she could be in it. He was interested, but told her agent that she needed to do a self-tape “like everyone else” to play the part of Hoffman’s girlfriend.
“The character is not her. That’s what’s so fun,” he said. “She’s American, she’s super uptight and kind of pill.” She filmed her scenes in one day, on a two-day break in the middle of her Brat tour.
It was a Charli xcx double feature at the Eccles with the world premiere of her self-referential mockumentary “The Moment,” about a rising pop star, before it hits theaters on Jan. 30. Earlier on Friday the world premiere of William David Caballero’s mixed-media film “TheyDream” immersed viewers in the intimate story of a Puerto Rican family learning to process grief through art. Caballero and cowriter Elaine Del Valle have screened short films at Sundance in the past but were honored to bring a full-length feature to the festival.
“Sundance has always been about possibility for me — about artists being given space to take creative risks and tell personal stories,” Del Valle, who is also a producer on the film, said. “Bringing our first feature, especially in Sundance’s final year in Utah, carries a different weight.”
Actress and director Olivia Wilde used her red carpet appearance at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday to slam the “murder” of an American protester, who was shot dead on the streets of Minnealpolis by federal agents. Wilde, who was in Park City, Utah, for the premiere “The Invite,” which she directed and starred in, said the death of a second protester in just three weeks at the hands of federal agents was “unfathomable.” “I can’t believe that we’re watching people get murdered in the street,” she said.
“These brave Americans who have stepped out to protest the injustice of these ICE quote/unquote ‘officers,’ and watching them be murdered. It’s unfathomable. We cannot normalize it.” Wilde’s comments come after the killing of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who died after being pinned to the ground by federal agents who then shot him multiple times. Pretti’s death comes weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed Renee Good, also 37, in her car. Wilde, who wore an “ICE OUT” badge, said the US government violence on people exercising their right to free expression was “un-American.”
“We may have a government that is somehow trying to make excuses for it and legitimize it, but we (Americans) don’t.”
Filmmakers and actors whose careers were shaped by Robert Redford and the Sundance Institute he founded reflected on his legacy as the godfather of independent cinema at a star-studded gala Friday night during the first Sundance Film Festival since his death. The 2026 festival — its last in Utah, before relocating to Boulder, Colorado — is a love letter to the haven Redford established in the state decades ago for stories that didn’t fit into the mainstream.
Even as the festival heads to its new home, the piece of Redford’s legacy that his daughter said meant the most to him will remain in Utah: the institute’s lab programs for writers and directors. “When my dad could have created an empire, he created a nest,” said his daughter, Amy Redford. “The Sundance Institute was designed to support and protect and nourish and then set free.”
Agencies