The indie drama Josephine, which premiered at the Eccles Theater in Park City, Utah, during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, left audiences in tears. The film follows a young girl in the aftermath of witnessing a brutal assault at a San Francisco park. It left audiences incredibly emotional, not just by the emotionally difficult subject matter, but also, according to a Variety report, by the lighthearted moments of levity in the film.

Audiences weren’t the only ones moved by the film. According to Variety, one of the film’s stars, Channing Tatum, who plays the young girl’s father, was also quite emotional. Tatum tells Variety he “cried five, six, seven times” during the screening, which was apparently his first time watching the film in its entirety. Tatum, along with Gemma Chan, plays the young girl’s parents as they struggle to give their daughter love and comfort after the events their daughter witnessed.

Josephine is written and directed by Beth de Araújo. The film was apparently inspired by a real-life event she faced as a child. After the film concluded, de Araújo, along with stars Tatum, Chan, and newcomer Mason Reeves, who plays the titular Josephine, took the stage as the film received a standing ovation. After the standing ovation finished, de Araújo said this about the film:

“I started writing this in 2014 when I realized that something happened to me when I was young that haunted me. I took a stab at writing about female fear, and how that’s shaped who I’ve become. I kept it through the eyes of an 8-year-old and how she learns about male aggression, and I took the fear to the extreme.”

After the premiere, as the audience left the Eccles Theater, Araújo thanked the audience for “engaging with something that isn’t an easy sit”, before adding “I hope you feel like you had an opportunity to crack your heart open and give yourself the time and space to imagine a better world for yourself.”