James Longley

From a multiple Oscar-nominated and Sundance award-winning filmmaker who combines fine art sensibility with a passion for communicating the worlds of civilians caught up in conflict, Longley’s film and photography work witnesses places such as Gaza, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Through an approach best described as Slow Journalism, Longley creates a big picture view from an intimate perspective.

Describing Longley's work in the Los Angeles Times in 2019, film critic Kenneth Turan wrote:

"What is life like on the ground for ordinary people in another culture, another world? That’s been the bread and butter of observational documentaries for forever, but almost never is it done with the kind of beauty and grace filmmaker James Longley brings to his Afghanistan-set “Angels Are Made of Light.”

As his 2006 Oscar-nominated “Iraq in Fragments” demonstrated, MacArthur Fellow Longley, who serves as his own cinematographer as well as directs, has an almost magical ability to envelope us in other realities.

He does it via the poetry of his imagery as well as a gift for focused illumination that creates empathetic portraits of people who are both ordinary and intensely involving." ...



In 2009 James was named a ...

James started public high school on San Juan Island in Washington State and finished at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts. His university years were divided between the University of Rochester, Wesleyan University, The Gornyii Institute in Leningrad - where he studied Russian Language - and the VGIK Cinematography Institute in Moscow.

James' documentary work has been twice Oscar-nominated and exhibited at New Directors/New Films at MoMA, Sundance, NYFF, TIFF, AIFF, Telluride Film Festival, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, Full Frame Festival, DOKUFEST, and many other wonderful festivals and theaters to strong critical acclaim. Longley's most recent feature documentary, Angels Are Made Of Light (available on iTunes and via arthouse distributor Grasshopper Film), premiered at Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival, and opened theatrically at Film Forum and was the New York Times's Critic's Pick.

A partial list of awards for James Longley's documentary work includes:

Nominated for Academy Award, Best Feature Documentary 
• Nominated for Academy Award, Best Documentary Short Subject
 • Best Documentary Short, San Francisco Int’l Festival
 • Nominated for DGA Award, Best Documentary Director 
• Best Documentary Director, Sundance Film Festival
 • Best Documentary Cinematography, Sundance Film Festival
 • Best Documentary Editing, Sundance Film Festival
 • Best Documentary, The Gotham Awards, New York City 
• Best Documentary, The Int...