- Is fluent in Russian.
- Spent two years in Iraq filming his Oscar-nominated documentary, Iraq in Fragments (2006).
- Received a Student Academy Award in 1994 for his documentary, Portrait of Boy with Dog, co-directed with Robin Hessman.
- Was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2007.
- One of 115 invitees to join AMPAS in 2007.
- Attended Phillips Andover Academy.
- Graduated from Wesleyan University in 1994.
- Lived for two years in Magnitogorsk, a steel town in western Siberia.
- Worked as a projectionist in his home-town movie theater.
- Studied filmmaking at VGIK in Moscow, Russia.
- Is a great grand nephew of William Preston "Wild Bill" Longley, a notorious Texas outlaw.
- Spent 100 days filming a documentary in the Gaza Strip during the second Palestinian uprising.
- Is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow.
- Longley lived and filmed in both Iran and Pakistan for years before settling in Afghanistan to make the documentary, Angels Are Made Of Light [2018].
- Longley lived for over three years in a residential house in Kabul, Afghanistan, while filming the documentary Angels Are Made Of Light [2018].
- Both of Longley's parents were biologists.
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