Nine years ago Baltimore-native Matthew VanDyke bought a motorcycle and a video camera and traveled across North Africa and the Middle East. During the trip he struck up a friendship with a Libyan man named Nuri. When revolution broke out in his new friend’s country, VanDyke joined the rebel fighters and documented the war against Muammar el-Qadaffi. He had a gun in one hand and a camera in the other. He was captured by Qadaffi’s forces and spent more than five months in solitary confinement.
VanDyke’s story is the subject of filmmaker Marshall Curry’s documentary, Point and Shoot, which airs on Monday, August 24 on SDPB-TV. In late 2012, Van Dyke was in Syria during the battle of Aleppo and produced a short documentary of his own about the resistance movement there, Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution. Now VanDyke has helped form the Sons of Liberty International to help Assyrian Christians in northern Iraq fight ISIS.
Matthew VanDyke joined Dakota Midday and discussed Point and Shoot and his activities since the Libyan Revolution.
