A Conversation with James Longley

Friday, October 29, 2010
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Nasher Museum of Art
Reception to follow, 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM

Documentary filmmaker James Longley discusses his award-winning films, current projects and recent MacArthur Grant with Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel.

Co-sponsored by the Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image, and the Center for Documentary Studies

Screen/Society events preceding:

• Iraq in Fragments, Wednesday, October 13, Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, 7pm
• Sari’s Mother, plus Gaza Strip, Wednesday, October 20, Griffith Film Theater, Bryan Center, 7pm

The Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Filmmaker Series

With generous funding from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel endowment fund, Duke University has established the Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Filmmaker Series. The series will feature artists whose work addresses significant contemporary topics of social, political, economic, and cultural urgency. Filmmakers chosen to participate will have a recognized body of work and show promise of future contributions to documentary filmmaking. Visiting filmmakers will be invited to Duke for a two-day residency.

Documentary filmmaker and 2009 MacArthur Fellow, James Longley, will inaugurate the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Filmmaker Series on October 29th, 2010 with a talk in the Nasher Museum at Duke University.

The Diamonstein-Spielvogel series is unique in its exclusive attention to documentary filmmakers with a global perspective. By giving Duke faculty and their students an opportunity to explore the films of socially engaged filmmakers and discuss the work with them, this new series hopes to inspire and encourage the next generation of young documentarians. Duke's Rare Book Manuscript and Special Collections Library launched the Diamstein-Spielvogel Video Archive in 2008.

James Longley

James Longley’s intimate portraits of individuals and families caught in the political turmoil of Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and Pakistan provide a rare window into the struggles and resilience of people living under devastating and inhumane conditions.

James Longley was born in Oregon in 1972. He studied at Wesleyan University and the University of Rochester, studying film and Russian. He also studied film at 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 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

After working as a film projectionist in Washington State, an English teacher in Siberia, a newspaper copy editor in Moscow, and a web designer in New York City, Longley traveled to Palestine in 2001 to make his first feature documentary, Gaza Strip. The film, which looks at the lives and views of ordinary Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Gaza, screened to critical acclaim in film festivals and U.S. theaters.

In 2002, Longley founded Daylight Factory, a production company committed to creating documentary films about international subjects. That year, he traveled to Iraq to begin work on his second documentary feature. Longley spent two years in Iraq living with and filming ordinary families in different parts of the country without the benefit of security protection or the aid of a film crew. From three of these stories, he created his award-winning Iraq in Fragments, and a fourth became the documentary short Sari’s Mother, both completed in 2006. He is currently at work on new projects in Iran and Pakistan.

Filmography

Untitled Pakistan project (In progress) Watch: Sample Clip

Untitled Iran project (In progress) Watch: Sample Clip #1 ; Sample clip #2

Iraq in Fragments (2006)
Directed by James Longley; produced by James Longley and John Sinno
92 minutes. In Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles
An poetic opus in three parts, this film presents three distinct stories, regions and cinematic styles: A child is apprenticed to the domineering owner of a Baghdad garage; Sadr followers in two Shiite cities rally for regional elections while violently enforcing Islamic law; a family of Kurdish farmers welcomes the U.S. presence, which brings them a measure of new freedom. Longley spent more than two years filming in Iraq before it became too dangerous for Western filmmakers to be there.
Watch: Official Trailer ; Sample Clip #1 ; Sample Clip #2

Sari’s Mother (2006)
Directed and produced by James Longley
21 minutes. In Arabic with English subtitles
This short documentary follows the struggle of an Iraqi mother to find help for her ten-year-old son, Sari, who is dying of AIDS. The Zegum family makes a living selling milk and butter, farming land rented from their neighbors, in the restive Mahmudiyah area of central Iraq. As the film opens US military helicopters are flying low over their fields. Sari’s mother administers injections to her son, whose condition is gradually deteriorating as his immune system fails. She seeks help in Baghdad’s hospitals and ministries, but discovers that the Iraqi healthcare system is in even worse condition under US occupation than before the war. Filmed at the same time as Iraq in Fragments, Longley chose to complete Sari’s story as an independent work.
Watch a clip.

Gaza Strip (2002)
Directed and Produced by James Longley

Portrait of Boy with Dog (1994)
Directed by James Longley and Robin Hessman

Awards and Honors (an incomplete list)

James Longley

• MacArthur Fellowship, 2009

Sari’s Mother

• Academy Awards 2008: (Nominated for Best Documentary, Short Subject)
• San Francisco International Film Festival 2007: Golden Gate Award for Documentary Short Subject

Iraq in Fragments

• Academy Awards 2007: (Nominated, Best Documentary Feature)
• Amnesty International Film Festival 2006: Youth Jury Award
• Chicago International Film Festival 2006: Gold Hugo Award for Best Documentary
• Cleveland Film Festival 2006: Nesnady and Schwartz Documentary Award
• Directors Guild of America Award 2007 (Nominated)
• Emmy Awards 2008: (Nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Cinematography - News Coverage/Documentaries)
• Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2006: Grand Jury Award
• Gotham Awards 2006: Best Documentary
• indieWIRE Film Critics Poll 2006: Best Documentary
• International Documentary Association Distinguished Documentary Feature Award 2006
• Human Rights Watch International Film Festival 2006: Nestor Almendros Award for Courage in Filmmaking
• Libertas Film Festival 2006: Best Documentary Feature
• Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival 2006: Special Mention; (nominated for Main Award of Mannheim-Heidelberg)
• Sundance Film Festival 2006: Directing Award, Cinematography Award, Documentary Film Editing Award; (nominated for Grand Jury Prize)
• Thessaloniki Film Festival 2006: FIPRESI Jury Prize

Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel

Throughout her 40-year career, Dr. Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel has served as a leading voice on some of the defining urban issues of our time, including preservation of the historic built environment of the United States. She is a pioneering champion of the arts, architecture, design and public policy.

The first Director of Cultural Affairs for New York City, she brought the first public art to Bryant Park in 1987, and the first public performance by the Metropolitan Opera to Central Park. She was the longest term Landmarks Commissioner in the city's history, spanning four mayoral administrations from 1972 to 1987. She also served on the New York City Arts Commission and the New York City Cultural Commission. She was the Chair of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Foundation from 1987 to 1995, and since 1995 has been the Chair of the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center. Dr. Diamonstein-Spielvogel was appointed by President Reagan to the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and by President Clinton to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, where she was elected its first woman vice chair in 2002. She was Chair of the 45th Anniversary Celebration of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Law and was named vice chair of the New York State Council on the Arts in 2008, a position she still holds.

Diamonstein-Spielvogel earned her doctorate with honors from New York University, and received honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Longwood University and the Pratt Institute. She is the author of 19 books and dozens of magazine and newspaper articles, interviewer/producer of nine television series for the Arts and Entertainment Network plus many programs for other national networks, and curator of seven international museum exhibitions-one of which traveled to 82 countries under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State. Her next book, Landmarks of New York, Vol. V, to be published in 2011, will be accompanied by an exhibition that will travel throughout New York State.

Over a hundred of her television interviews, many of which were shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery, are now available on iTunes U and YouTube, digitized by the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Video Archive at Duke University. In October 2010, Duke will initiate the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Filmmaker Series to address significant contemporary topics of social, political, economic, and cultural urgency from a global perspective.

Throughout her career, Diamonstein-Spielvogel has been involved in board service for national and local institutions and organizations, including current appointments to the Fresh Air Fund, the Drawing Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Acquisitions Committee of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Board of the Museum of Modern Art, the American Council on the Arts, and the White House Endowment Fund, to name a few. She is married to the leading international business executive, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Slovak Republic, Carl Spielvogel.

The recipient of many awards and honors, Diamonstein-Spielvogel has recieved lifetime achievement awards from Partners for Livable Places in Washington, D.C., and the Citizens Committee of New York; a Pratt Institute "Legend" Award; and the the Gen. Milan R. Stefanik Award for contributing to the advancement of public knowledge about the Slovak nation and people. She will receive the Weeksville Society's Humanitarian Award this November. Dr. Diamonstein-Spielvogel has been a powerful force in shaping the direction of preservation and culture, in New York, where her influence is pervasive, and on the national and international scene as well.