Became friends with independent film director (7)
I believe the answer is:
fellini
'film director' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'became friends with independent' is the wordplay.
'became friends with' becomes 'fellin' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'independent' becomes 'i'.
'fellin'+'i'='FELLINI'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for fellini that I've seen before include "Shooting Italian" , "It. film director (La Dolce Vita)" , "Federico ------- (1920-1993), Italian film director" , "It. director of Satyricon" , "Italian film-maker, d. 1993" .)