filmbriefs
Director · Cinematographer · Editor · Screenwriter

Josh Safdie

2
briefs
13:00
average
26 min
in total
On film.briefs2
13:00

Daddy Longlegs

Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie · 2009

Daddy Longlegs (2009) follows Lenny, a divorced Manhattan projectionist, during his annual two-week custody of his sons Sage and Frey. Shot on digital video with non-professional performers and minimal score, it observes his chaotic, often reckless parenting — from impromptu road trips to drugging the boys to avoid leaving them alone — without moral framing or psychological exposition. Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie and written by Benny Safdie and Ronald Bronstein, it is a rigorously unsentimental study of adult failure witnessed by children.

13:00

Uncut Gems

Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie · 2019

A 2019 crime thriller set in New York’s Diamond District, Uncut Gems follows Howard Ratner, a jeweller and compulsive gambler, over a few chaotic days in 2012. When a rare Ethiopian opal arrives at his store, he leverages it across multiple high-stakes bets while evading loan sharks and managing fractured personal relationships. Directed by Benny and Josh Safdie, the film uses aggressive editing, claustrophobic cinematography, and a pulsing electronic score to simulate the physiology of addiction. Adam Sandler delivers a career-defining performance as a man whose intelligence and energy are indistinguishable from his self-destruction.