Josh Safdie

Josh Safdie had the uncanny gift of crafting extraordinary stories from life's most mundane moments. A favorite on the independent film festival circuit, Safdie wrote and directed one of 2010's most buzzed about feature films, "Daddy Longlegs," a fictionalized portrait of his real-life father. In collaboration with his fellow filmmaker brother, Benny, Safdie recreated their childhood memories of living with a father who compulsively recorded his children's every move. After the movie's premiere, critics showered Safdie with accolades for weaving his astute life observations into characters who audiences could quickly relate to, and ultimately, recognized his talents as one of his generation's most groundbreaking young filmmakers.

Joshua Safdie was born on April 3, 1984 in New York City. After his parents separated when he was two, Safdie began living with his father and young brother, Benny, in Manhattan. That was the beginning of a childhood that was forever preserved on tape - 300 hours worth of memories, to be specific. From the moment his father acquired a Video 8 camera, he methodically recorded his children's daily activities - car rides, trips to the zoo, drawing pictures, and even while they slept. His compulsive shooting both angered and confused Safdie, who eventually grew up wanting to make movies on his own. He attended Manhattan's Columbia Grammar and Prep School, and went on to study film at Boston University. In 2001, Safdie formed the production company, Red Bucket Films, along with his brother and a couple of fellow film enthusiasts. Over the years, Safdie and his brother collaborated on various shorts, including the 2005 film "The Adventures of Slater's Friend," which told the story of one man's daily grind, and the 2007 comedy "The Back of Her Head," about a man who lived in an apartment above a strange woman who he was in love with.

Like his writer-director brother, Safdie often drew inspiration from ordinary moments and random emotions that he longed to revive. In the feature comedy "The Pleasure of Being Robbed" (2008), which he directed, wrote, and starred in, Safdie told the story of a lithe young woman who viewed the world around her very much like a shop full of toys that she could play with. She routinely ran away with other people's bags, set of keys, and cars, and used her "finds" to gain new experiences. "The Pleasure of Being Robbed" was one of Safdie's earlier works that garnered international exposure, after it premiered at the 2008 Director's Fortnight in Cannes.

In 2010, Safdie took the independent world by storm with the semi-autobiographical film "Daddy Longlegs," the first feature film he collaborated on with his brother. The low-budget movie centered on Lenny Sokol, a frustrated filmmaker who appeared never to held a real job, and the two weeks each year that he had custody of his two young boys. Shot entirely using 16mm film to give the movie a more nostalgic look, the movie explored the chaotic yet poignant moments that happened when Lenny tried to care for his boys, but was absolutely clueless about it. While it was technically perfect, the movie also excelled in the brothers' ability to revive their own feelings as children and weave those into their father's experiences. Along with heaps of critical praise, "Daddy Longlegs" also earned the Safdie brothers a John Cassavetes Award nomination from the 2011 Independent Spirit Awards.