Emely Taveras 
Josie Burke has lived in Downtown Jersey City her whole life—she grew up here when there was nothing, stayed when everyone else left, and is now raising her daughter here. She’s also fifth-generation Jersey City on her husband’s side, so when she laughs and says, “I’m pretty hardcore JC,” you believe her. We met at The Hive, her favorite local cafe, on a warm January morning, and she showed up with a bag full of business cards for her new film, which she’d been leaving at local spots around the neighborhood. Midway through our conversation, a woman with a stroller struggled with the cafe door, and Josie was across the room before I could blink—something that makes sense once you know she’s a new mom herself, and that the film she’s making is about something most new moms don’t talk about: miscarriage. Read on to hear about Jersey City filmmaker Josie Burke and her next project.
About You Really Tried Your Hardest
You Really Tried Your Hardest is a feature-length dramedy about a couple, Isabel and Josh, reeling after a sudden miscarriage 12 weeks into a pregnancy. Isabel is full of guilt, suddenly doubting if she’s cut out to be a mother. Josh is overwhelmed with helplessness. The film follows them through a baby shower gone wrong, a date at a rage room, and what Josie describes as “seemingly never-ending doctor’s appointments with a side of stand-up.”
Read More: NJ-Based Feedback Platform Twocents Arrives in Hoboken + Jersey City
Why Josie Wrote the Script Herself
Josie wrote the script herself. She had to. When she experienced her own miscarriage in early 2023, she turned to movies for comfort the way she always has. But she couldn’t find anything.
“There are scenes in movies,” she says. “But there’s no film that’s about this from beginning to end. And I just find that so crazy, because the statistics are one in four pregnancies. One in four.”
She started talking to close friends. A lot of them had been through it too. Her neighbor. Women she’d known for years who had never mentioned it.
“As women, I think we’re just like, yeah, something horrible happened, and then I had to go to work,” she says. “So I decided I was going to write it myself.”
A Background in Acting + Filmmaking
Josie isn’t new to filmmaking. She trained at the Atlantic Theater Company’s acting conservatory, the program founded by William H. Macy and David Mamet, and has been working as an actor for over a decade. Stage work at Theater for the New City and the 4th Street Theatre in Manhattan. A feature film in Alabama.
Then Covid hit, nobody was hiring, and she finally listened to the friends who had been telling her for years to try writing.
Her first script became Heirloom, a 22-minute short about a newly sober woman who learns her estranged mother has just passed away. Josie wrote it, produced it, and starred in it alongside Broadway legend Norm Lewis. The film was accepted into 22 festivals and won six awards, including Best Short Film at the International New York Film Festival and Best Actress at the Grove Film Festival.
“I got the bug,” she says. “I wrote this, and people who are really talented wanted to do it. And it was like, okay, I can keep doing this.”
A Bigger Film — Rooted in Jersey City
You Really Tried Your Hardest is bigger. The script is 93 pages. The budget is $250,000, which sounds like a lot but is considered a micro-budget in the film world. Josie has already raised about $50,000 through friends, family, and her Jersey City community.
She has a director attached: Akanksha Cruczynski, who won an Oscar for her student film. (“She told me like it was an off comment,” Josie says. “I was like, I would lead with that.”)
See More: New Jersey Lawmakers Propose Tax Breaks to Save New Jersey Diners
The film will be shot entirely in Downtown Jersey City. Josie wants to film at The Hive, in Hamilton Park, maybe in her own house. Her character works at a tattoo shop, so she’s hoping to shoot at the old-school spot on Newark Avenue.
“So many things are filmed here to pretend like they’re somewhere else,” she says. “I want to show JC a little love. The characters are from here. They live here. They work here. It’s going to be its own character in the film.”
Balancing Grief, Humor, and Perspective
It was important to Josie that the film not be an hour and a half of devastation. Life isn’t like that. “Something terrible can happen, and then a bird poops on your head in the middle of you crying on the sidewalk, and you have to laugh, or else you’re just gonna cry,” she says.
She also wanted to include the male perspective. Her husband was devastated by the loss, too, and she remembers being so deep in her own grief that she didn’t leave room for his. “I have a whole scene where the husband’s just like, I don’t know how to help you,” she says. “I want couples to watch this and be like, oh my God, nobody has covered this.”
What’s Next
Josie hopes to film this fall, hit festivals in the spring or summer of 2027, and eventually screen the finished film right here in Jersey City. She’s already dreaming about where. Maybe the Loew’s Theatre in Journal Square. Maybe a giant screen at Porta.
“People who live here love Jersey City,” she says. “I just think they’re going to be really excited that something is showcasing this place as it actually is.” Josie met her initial crowdfunding goal, but neighbors can still contribute to the project here.
You can follow Josie on Instagram: @josie.c.burke.
Follow @thehobokengirl on Instagram + TikTok for the latest Hoboken and Jersey City updates, sign up for our weekly newsletter here that shares everything you missed each week, and check out our events calendar, which has over 100+ events weekly to peruse.
