The scene took place in Toronto, Canada, during the International Film Festival, where Benny Safdie came in early September to present The Smashing Machine, his first feature film on his own – that is, without his older brother, Josh, with whom he co-directed several gems of recent American independent cinema, such as Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2020). Out on the street, in front of the theater where he had just finished a lengthy question-and-answer session after the film’s screening, the talkative 39-year-old director extended the moment by chatting with his fans.
It was 11 pm, the publicist and festival staff had gone to bed, but he stayed, taking selfies, signing autographs, and sharing stories from the shoot. «It costs me nothing and it’s meaningful to someone,» he explained, as we walked with him to his hotel bar for a semi-impromptu interview over a Manhattan – the whiskey-based cocktail named after the place where he grew up, and where he still lives.
A few days earlier, Safdie won the Silver Lion for best director at the Venice Film Festival and did not hide his delight: «I’m shocked I’ve won the Silver Lion for my first [solo] film, when there were so many great filmmakers in competition.» Barely seated, he pulled out his phone and showed us, as if opening a toy chest, several videos that would end up as extras on the Blu-ray. There was a «great scene» with the film’s star, Dwayne Johnson, ordering a burger, which he had to cut from the footage shot in the London studio of jazz artist Nala Sinephro, 29, who composed the film’s lush and atmospheric score.
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