Point and Shoot

In 2006, Matt VanDyke, a timid 26-year-old with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, set off on a 35,000 mile motorcycle adventure that eventually led him to Libya, where he joined the rebels fighting dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Film Signature Image
Series
POV
Premiere Date
August 24, 2015
Length
90 minutes
Funding Initiative
Series and Special Projects
  • Nominated laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2015 News and Documentary Emmy Awards-Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction
    • Director

    Marshall Curry

    Marshall Curry is a two-time Academy Award-nominated documentary director. He got his start directing, shooting, and editing Street Fight, which follows Cory Booker's first run for mayor of Newark, NJ. It aired on PBS, the BBC, HBO Latin America, and was nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy. After Street Fight, Curry was the director and producer, as… Show more well as one of the cinematographers and editors, of Racing Dreams, which follows two boys and a girl who dream of racing in NASCAR. The film won numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is being developed into a fiction film by Dreamworks. Curry's third documentary (director, editor, writer), If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, follows an environmentalist who faced life in prison for burning two timber facilities. It won the Sundance Film Festival award for Best Documentary Editing and was nominated for an Academy Award. Most recently, Curry was Executive Producer (and additional editor) of Mistaken for Strangers, a heartbreaking comedy rock-doc about sibling rivalry in the band The National. It was the opening night film at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it received rave reviews. Show less

    Filmmaker site
    Other ITVS Films
    If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
    Street Fight
    Producer

    Elizabeth Martin

    Though Elizabeth Martin has worked with Marshall Curry on all his previous documentaries, Point and Shoot is the first film that she has produced. Previously, Elizabeth founded and served as Executive Director of WomensLaw.org, a nonprofit organization providing legal information and support for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault… Show more throughout the United States. In this capacity, Elizabeth and WomensLaw.org received a Webby Award, the Sunshine Lady Foundation Peace Award, and a Celebrating Solutions Award. She has been profiled in several articles and books on social change and philanthropy, including most recently, Giving 2.0, by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen. Show less

    Producer

    Matthew VanDyke

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    The Film

    In 2006, Matt VanDyke, a timid 26-year-old with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, left home in Baltimore and set off on a self-described “crash course in manhood.” He bought a motorcycle and a video camera and began a three-year, 35,000-mile motorcycle trip through Northern Africa and the Middle East. While traveling, he struck up an unlikely friendship with a Libyan hippie, and when revolution broke out in Libya, Matt joined his friend in the fight against dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

    With a gun in one hand and a camera in the other, Matt fought in — and filmed — the war until he was captured by Gaddafi forces and held in solitary confinement for six months. Two-time Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Marshall Curry tells this harrowing and sometimes humorous story of a young man’s struggle for political revolution and personal transformation.

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