Encounter Point is an 85-minute feature documentary film that follows a former Israeli settler, a Palestinian ex-prisoner, a bereaved Israeli mother and a wounded Palestinian bereaved brother who risk their lives and public standing to promote a nonviolent end to the conflict. Their journeys lead them to the unlikeliest places to confront hatred within their […]
From the award-winning Director of Iraq In Fragments
American documentary filmmaker James Longley (Academy Award nominee, Iraq In Fragments) traveled to the Gaza Strip in January of 2001, planning to stay for two weeks and collect preliminary material for a film about the Palestinian intifada. He threw away his return ticket and stayed for another 3 […]
“Concise, intelligent docu[mentary]… Dynamically edited… deftly avoids schmaltz in its delineation of grief and its celebration of cross-cultural activism.”
- Ronnie Scheib, Variety
“A riveting documentary, which blazes with a kind of spiritual grace while remaining firmly grounded in a tragic reality…”
- Melissa Levine, Village Voice
“Something else entirely…. Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha never flinch from the […]
Nominated - Academy Award® Best Documentary Feature - 2007
Nominated - Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary - Directors Guild of America
Winner -Distinguished Feature Documentary Award - International Documentary Association
Winner - Best Documentary Directing - Sundance Film Festival
Winner - Best Documentary Cinematography - Sundance Film Festival
Winner - Best Documentary Editing- Sundance Film Festival
Nominated - Grand Jury Prize […]
“But pointing the camera need not always involve pointing a finger. James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments is the latest entry in the crowded field of documentaries from that war. It is also one of the best, partly because it is more concerned with exploring daily life and individual destinies than with articulating a position. The […]
[ pre-production ]
One rainy Seattle evening in the spring of 2002 I was fielding questions at the premiere of my first feature documentary, Gaza Strip. Someone finally asked the question that always gets asked: “What are you going to make next?” Without thinking I replied that I would make a documentary about Iraq.
At […]
I set my mind to making a film about Iraq in early 2002 when it became clear that the United States would invade. By September 2002, I had found a way to travel to Iraq with my camera, tagging along with several US journalists following Congressman Jim McDermott to Baghdad as he made a prophetic […]
James Longley was born in Oregon in 1972. He studied film at the University of Rochester and Wesleyan University in the United States, and the All-Russian Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. His student documentary, Portrait of Boy with Dog, about a boy in a Moscow orphanage, was awarded the Student Academy Award in 1994 […]
Hany Abu-Assad’s (Rana’s Wedding) newest feature ‘Paradise Now’ has been nominated for an Academy Award.
Official Paradise Now website.
New York Times
Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
“Hard Life in Gaza, Through 13-Year-Old Eyes”
Like most news reports and television images coming out of the Middle East these days, “Gaza Strip,” an unsparing new documentary by James Longley, offers little reason for optimism. The film, which opens today at the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village, was […]
