MVFF49—JOSEPHINE (2026) / AVEDON (2026) / ODYSSEY (2026) / THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH (2026): REVIEWS

Josephine (2026); Dir. Beth de Araújo—Channing Tatum delivers one of the most nuanced performances of his career as Damien, a young father who has overcome the abuse of his own childhood by projecting his survival onto his daughter Josephine (newcomer Mason Reeves). Without seeming to know it, he is trying to make a man of her, even though she is only eight years old, and in the process unwittingly places her in harm’s way. During an early-morning jog with her father and momentarily separated from him, Josephine witnesses a rape. Her efforts to make sense of what she has seen and her father’s insistence that she be a witness in the court trial of the rapist creates tension with his wife Claire (Gemma Chan) whose idea of how to be a protective parent are in gendered conflict with Damien. She sees that Josephine is haunted by the presence of the rapist in her everyday life; one of the most unnerving visuals in San Francisco native de Araújo’s second feature. Tatum’s portrayal of how his character comes to an awareness of his culpability is quite moving and Mason Reeves delivers the most astounding child performance in recent memory. Josephine is one of MVFF’s Big Night screenings with a Spotlight Award on de Araújo as recipient of the MVFF Bay Area Rising Star Award and Elton Creation Special Jury Prize. Mason Reeves will join her for an after-screening conversation.

   

Avedon (2026); Dir. Ron Howard—This portrait of the master of portraits situates Richard Avedon within the pulsing currents of his time, from early fashion, through the counterculture, to the controversial themes of his later years that bucked anticipation. By documenting the historical moment, Avedon himself becomes history. Through his iconic images of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin, his artistic process in itself achieves iconicity. I was moved by the difficulty of his childhood years and how his suffering enforced in him a sense of responsibility to the sufferings of others.  

Odyssey (2026); Dir. Avi Belkin—I was nine years old when, in the fifth grade, I wrote my first poem “I Want to Be A Spaceman” for our mimeographed grade school “newspaper.” I was 16 when I stood beside my stepfather Moises Reyes who had wandered away from television coverage of the moon landing to stare up at the moon. With the sweetest incredulity in his voice that I will remember to my dying day, Moises asked me: “Hijo, is that the moon they’re landing on?” 

Tom Hanks, who portrayed astronaut and commander Jim Lovell in the 1995 film Apollo 13, serves as Executive Producer for Avi Belkin’s riveting reconstruction of the rise and fall of the Apollo space program—seen largely through Jim Lovell’s perspective and focusing notably on the compromised Apollo 13 mission. Relying solely on 2500 hours of archival footage, though augmented by the contemporary grinding score of Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans to sci-fi effect, Belkin masterfully edits together a remarkably thrilling documentary that captures the tension of events as they occurred while an entire planet watched with halted breath as the crew of the jeopardized Apollo 13 mission struggled to return home to Earth. I’m 73 now and at odds with how our dreams of space have been co-opted by billionaires for their own spurious ends. 

The Last Place On Earth (2026); Dir. David Booth Gardner—I hardly know how to write about a documentary with an all-too-familiar if vivid theme of how our habits of consumption here at home are wreaking environmental havoc elsewhere in the world, namely the Leuser Ecosystem in the Aceh Province of Sumatra, whose 10,039 square miles—as the film’s title attests—is the last place on earth where orangutans, rhinos, tigers, and elephants still roam freely in the wild. It is also under threat of being decimated by illegal deforestation, wildlife poaching and trafficking, and an unregulated palm oil industry that generates a myriad of products consumers here at home take for granted. Regardless, I have to give credit to director Gardner for his well-mounted effort to raise awareness. This dire emergency is presented through the woven perspectives of wildlife activists, including Panut Hadisiswoyo of the Natural Resource Conservation Unit who rescues an orangutan, nicknamed Irmelin, chained by the neck to a wall in a cramped crawlspace and eventually released back into the wild. Panut’s commitment to Irmelin serves as the heart to this documentary and, along with director Gardner, Panut is expected to attend MVFF.