All language subtitles for Point.And.Shoot.2014.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-yts

My name is.

My name is Matt Van Dyke.

I'm 29 years old.

I carry a Smith & Wesson
Xtreme Ops knife.

It flips out.

It's a basic pocket knife.

It's decent, partially serrated blade.

I also have a knife that I
wear attached to my shin.

Okay for cutting, primarily
for stabbing.

So this is the armor vest.

In addition to body armor and a jacket,
of course, I have a helmet.

This helmet's been fitted with
a helmet camera mount.

I'll pick this up in the next clip.

♪

♪

♪

♪

Last fall, I met Matt Van Dyke,
who told me he'd been

home in Baltimore when revolution
broke out in Libya.

Rebels had taken up arms against Muammar
Gaddafi, the country's dictator.

When Matt heard about the
uprising, he bought

a plane ticket and set off
to join the rebels.

In his bag, he carried a video camera.

Alright, you good?

Yeah.

Okay, so how did a guy from Baltimore end
up fighting in the Libyan Revolution?

Oh, I don't know.

Were there some influences growing up?

Books I always read when I was a
child were-own-adventure books.

This is a great white water adventure!

My mother says that as a child, I always
had a deep desire for adventure.

Matthew!

I was raised on action movies.

I wanted to be a CIA agent,
and I wanted to be a spy.

Movies shaped a lot of who I was.

On the new Indiana Jones!

But in reality, I was sort of sheltered
and spoiled growing up.

Be careful lifting those rocks.

I was an only child of an only
child of an only child.

And I was raised in a house where my grandparents
lived with my mother and I.

I was just the center of
my family's universe.

Don't you look sharp.

I lived at home in the basement
through college.

I didn't have many friends.

I would spend, at times, 12 hours

straight in front of a computer
playing games.

All my adventures were virtual.

I first saw Lawrence of
Arabia when I was in

college, and it became one
of my favorite films.

These are not ordinary men.

I don't want ordinary men.

I decided I wanted to
study Middle East.

So I went to Georgetown
University and earned

a master's degree in Middle
East concentration.

but it was all just academic
and intellectual.

I had never actually even
been to the Arab world.

When I graduated from Georgetown, I

really did not know much
about the real world.

I still wanted to do something
that was extraordinary.

But here I was in my mid-20s.

My mother and grandmother
would do my grocery

shopping and do my laundry
and bring it to me.

Never really paid my own bills.

No job.

I had to do something drastic.

And so I needed to, you know, do a course
correction quite quickly in my life.

So I decided I'd just do it
the hardest way possible.

You know, a crash course in manhood.

And then one day, I was
sitting at home

watching television, and there
was Albie Mingles.

♪

He's an Australian filmmaker
from the 70s and 80s.

And he set off a multi-year
journey doing all

sorts of crazy adventures
in Africa and so on.

And he produced these films that
were very popular in Australia.

All this blonde hair,
and dressed kind of

funny in his cut-off denim
shorts and no shirt.

But there was just something really
appealing about these films.

He was like a real-life Hollywood

hero and rather than just

filming other people he was filming
his own adventures in himself.

It was exactly what, that's
the life I wanted to live.

So I decided I would go and make travel adventure
films like Albie Mingles did.

♪

Okay, this is the first recording
with the new camera.

So I went out and bought a camera
and I bought a motorcycle.

I wanted to make a cutting-edge
travel adventure documentary.

I was going on my crash course in

manhood, and I wanted to
capture that on film.

Did you hope that by making
a movie and being in

your movie that you'd sort
of be able to play a

character on camera that made
you become the real love?

Yeah, yeah I did.

I suppose I was crafting myself.

Using the camera to write
my own life story.

I supported the idea of him doing
something that would force him

to be more independent and more responsible
for his daily existence.

You know, Lauren's sort of the more

responsible, kind of-to-earth, you

know, steadily employed,

rational, reasonable, one that kind
of keeps me a bit grounded.

That's part of why I felt like
this trip would be so good

for him, because he'd have to do
all these things for himself.

There wasn't going to be anyone there
to help him or do it for him.

Oh, this is an awesome shot.

This one's making the film.

What are you doing monkey?

Go.

Jesus

Okay, I'm in Gibraltar.

I'm at the Pillars of Hercules.

And behind me is my first
view of Africa.

And here it is.

Africa.

It was very picturesque and
very, you know, just

like I would have, you know,
written it into a script.

♪

and I saw a camel, and I was like,
wow, I am really here.

I'm filming and photographing, but I

didn't know anything about
Arab culture really.

So for example, there were a lot of
guys walking around holding hands.

I called Laura and I said, you
know, Morocco is really

progressive and they're really
open with homosexuality.

And she's like, you're an idiot.

Like, men hold hands over there.

-I was like, really?
-And when I went to

use the bathroom, there
was a squat toilet.

I had no idea what this
hole in the floor was.

I ended up using the shower as a
toilet and it got really gross.

A little bit horrifying, actually.

You alright?

It's a problem I've had since I was
probably about 16 years old.

In high school, I started to become sort
of obsessed with washing my hands.

I went to a psychiatrist
who diagnosed me as

having obsessive compulsive
disorder, or OCD.

My OCD is anxiety about various
things, phobias.

I avoid trash cans, sugar.

If sugar were to get on me,
I would feel contaminated.

It ranges from minor inconvenience
to extremely stressful.

OCD video.

Everything's okay, right?

Just making sure I didn't hit anybody
here when I pulled over.

Part of my OCD is a constant
fear of doing

something that will accidentally
harm somebody else.

If I'm driving down the road and
I hit a bump I will start to

think could that have been a person
could I've hit Somebody

and then I might get 20 more miles
down the road before I

decide to go back and check just to make
sure Okay, this is a OCD shot.

Could I have caused somebody
to fall off the cliff?

Consciously, I know it's not real, but
I still have to get it off my mind.

Here's a view of it.

I don't see any cars that
could have crashed.

Fuck four fucking OCD videos.

When I started using a helmet
camera it took a lot of that

stress off me because I would just
let it roll and then I knew

I could always go back and check
the footage but even with the

helmet camera it would cause me
to look back over my shoulder

and try to angle the camera to make
sure I captured this fear

on film and then I'm looking over
my shoulder one time and I

look back and there's a car coming
right at me, crazy Moroccan

driver like driving in the wrong lane and
I swerved off the road and crashed.

This is me the day I broke
my collarbone.

Can you see that?

It's gross.

I don't know what to say.

I had a motorcycle accident
and I broke my

clavicle and so ends the
adventure for now.

Okay, let's go.

But after this accident I became
terrified basically.

I had like called Lauren
from the hotel room in

Morocco and whined about how
afraid I was to leave

the hotel room and she said to me,
why are you such a coward?

And it stuck in my head for years.

I still bother, I still,
you know, bring it up

from time to time whether she
thinks I'm a coward now.

And I mean I think that
really stuck with him.

He was kind of hurt by it but he
recognized that I was right.

So, I mean whether it
caused this whole

trajectory or not, who, I mean,
who can, who knows?

Who can say?

Now she probably wishes
she hadn't said it.

But um, so I end up, I went
back, I got the bike.

And I decided I'm going to hit
every similar country.

Spent some time in Tunisia,
went to Egypt.

Through Jordan, through Syria,
you know, I tried

to see everything, I zigzagged
across the region.

♪

♪

And I'm filming everything

♪

♪

I wasn't just watching television.

I was reading about other people.

I was finally having my own adventure.

It was incredible.

♪

In total, I did about 35
,000 miles on that bike.

It's one of the best days of my life.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Shit!

Damn it, well I almost made it and
now I just crashed the bike.

I'm trying to wade to this
truck to get help.

-Damn it.
-Damn it!

Fuck!

I don't know what to do.

I can't get the bike up.

It's very, very difficult to shoot
a motorcycle film by yourself.

Sometimes I would drive up a mountain,
set up the camera on a

tripod, and then drive back down the
mountain, showing myself driving.

The whole process would take,
you know, 30 minutes,

an hour for one shot that I probably
wouldn't even use.

Shit!

Oh my god!

Yeah!

I taught myself how to do wheelies
so now I'm kind of like wheelie

crazed and I just want to do wheelies
in like every shot and I

have to resist the urge to do it because
it'll just look really show-off

but the problem with
adrenaline is that

every time you reach a new
level you need it.

You know, adventure is a little bit
like a drug, and you build a

tolerance to it, and then you have
to take it to the next level.

I approached a newspaper
in Baltimore, the

Baltimore Examiner, and said,
look, if you just

give me the paperwork, I'll go
do some embedded journalism.

And they said, that's great,
but you can't even

afford to send our reporters
to away football games.

So now they had a war correspondent.

All right, let's go.

Mount up.

-Mount up.
-Mount up.

Seeing war up close for
the first time, it

was like the movies, but
not like the movies.

Oh, guys, it's Cal.

We don't have a Cal.

Oh, shit.

There goes the bingo camera.

Soldiers would ask me to
film them acting like

soldiers, even though that's
what they actually were.

They wanted to define their
image on camera.

Yo, make sure you get the picture
of me kicking the door.

No, seriously, so what should
we do with this?

Let's go.

Oh, my God.

I don't want to kick it.

Kick that shit.

All right, now take a picture
of this shit.

-Hold on.
-What?
-What are you gonna do?

Go clear it first. Go fucking
clear it first.

The soldiers were very
friendly towards me,

especially when I told them about
the film I was making.

My vision look good.

Yeah, it does.

It's better than I expected it to be

Huh don't know yet

There were times when
I was in Iraq that I

felt like I was on the wrong
side of the camera.

Not necessarily that I wanted to be a

soldier, but I didn't want to

be just a documentarian.

I wanted to be shaping
events around me

and having an impact,
not just watching.

Matt, you gonna shoot?

Yeah, sure.

Hey, go put up a target for him.

When I was there, I learned a lot of

things that would become
useful later in Libya.

He's close.

So?

He's ready to fire.

How am I doing pretty fucking
good for guy never shoes

I'm just saying he's in
the fucking black

I've been here looking at my map, Map

of Iraq, probably one of the

worst selling maps that the International
Travel Maps Company makes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We talked.

It wasn't like he was gone for months and
months and I didn't hear from him.

In almost every country
he went to, we'd have

periodic access to email,
we'd have video chats.

And that gave me the opportunity
to see him and to

see the changes and to hear
him talk about the

things he had seen and people he'd
met and places he'd gone.

And it was amazing.

Amazing.

This is my utterly filthy hotel.

Absolutely disgusting in here.

Is this a live wire?

Look at this thing.

Having a camera to film my
OCD helped me control it.

Look at the walls.

I felt I had sort of grown
out of Matthew Van Dyke.

I was over there without my family
and I was on my own and

doing things that Matthew Van Dyke
would never have been able to do.

So I felt it warranted a new name.

My name is Max Hunter.

I'm 29 years old and I'm
driving to Afghanistan.

Max Hunter.

Max Hunter was a swaggering, egotistical,
ridiculously fearless,

reckless guy that wanted to show off and
get famous and these sorts of things.

Very much informed by
films in Hollywood.

And at the beginning, I was struggling
to project that on camera.

But, you know, over time, I think I sort
of grew into the me on camera.

We all gotta get our thrills
somehow, right?

And this is how I get mine.

♪

I started doing things
that now I realize

are a bit crazy, things that
I would not do now.

I went through Tehran, crossed the
border, got to Afghanistan.

I got dressed as an Afghan.

I'd been growing my beard out.

They blended in fairly well.

I bought salt-off shotguns.

I kept them under my clothes
for-defense. -...

I ended up getting to Kabul, traveled

around the country, got attacked
by a village mob.

I got punched in the face by a cop.

Got arrested a few times.

My head's, like, can't move.

He's, like, talking to me.

-Fire.
-Fire!

I spent some time with U.S.

soldiers.

Just make sure you get the
shell casings coming out.

I gotcha.

The more I did, the more
I wanted to do it.

And the more I survived, the farther
I thought I could push it.

I went to Osama Bin Laden's
old house in Jalalabad.

I snuck in there and planted an
American flag in the ruins.

I also took a brick that I
still have as a souvenir.

It was a very dangerous project, it's very
miraculous that I even survived it.

got bitten by a dog, a wild dog.

That's what it looks like.

It was just one crazy adventure
after another.

In all my years filming hundreds
of hours of footage, the most

important, pivotal moment of my entire journey
I didn't even capture on film.

And that was meeting Nori.

Nori and his cousin were traveling
through Africa mostly by foot.

And Nori was a hippie.

He had a lot of hair, talking
about peace and love,

and this was a very cool
Libyan to meet for the

first time because this wasn't
my impression of Libyans.

Nori and I becoming friends
was sort of a little bit

unexpected for me as well because,
you know, I'm not a hippie.

I'm sort of more uptight.

I have OCD.

But Nori's one of the nicest people
that you'll ever meet.

He's like, I used to describe
him as almost

saint-like, like his mentality
and his kindness.

He's one of the greatest
people I've ever known.

We exchanged numbers and Norah
said I should go to Libya.

Americans weren't able to get tourist
visas to Libya at that time.

So I paid a fairly large bribe
and got into Libya.

When I got into Libya, I thought
it was the coolest thing ever.

Of course, I ran around with
the motorcycle and posed

for pictures in front of Qaddafi's
posters to prove it.

At that time, I think Qaddafi had
been in power for 38 years.

The 38 was in the posters.

I still sort of can't
believe I'm here.

It's almost like a dream.

I called Nori and hung out
with him and his cousin.

And I met these bikers.

These became, like, really
good friends of mine.

When I was in high school, I
didn't have any friends.

I was mostly alone in high school.

And the few I have, I value highly.

And the friends I made
in Libya were better

friends to me than almost all
my friends in America.

Say something.

I'm celebrating the top of the world.

It just felt like I'd sort
of arrived home in a way.

And the good friendships that I made really
made me fall in love with Libya.

I can't believe you.

You're out of Libya now.

Laughter

Is it filming?

Yes.

Okay.

Merry Christmas.

Yes, thank you.

He came back and, I mean, everything
was just better.

I mean, I just, like, it's cliche, but,
you know, a weight just lifted.

And I was so excited and
just so relieved.

Well, I'm recording you right now.

It's the way things should be.

When I came back, I was
completely exhausted.

I was done with traveling.

I told Lauren, now we can
have a normal life.

And then Libya happened.

And, uh, all those plans changed.

A revolution is spreading across the Arab
world with anti-government protests.

Tunisia is in chaos this morning after

protesters forced out the
country's president.

Egypt is now in a third day
of massive protests.

Even in Syria, protesters
are planning two days

of rage against the hard-line
dictatorship there.

They want freedom, they
want social justice,

an end to economic deprivation
and corruption.

It's about democracy, it's
about personal liberties.

We need freedom!

Freedom! Freedom! Protests all across the
Arab world, from Morocco to Iran.

Governments have fallen
in Tunisia and Egypt.

Will Libya be next?

February 2011, a revolution
in Tunisia and Egypt.

It spread to Libya.

It just started as a protest.

But when people in Libya protested,
Gaddafi came out and shot them.

Gaddafi has reportedly sent out death squads
to hunt down protesters-to-door.

People, if they ended up in a hospital
injured in a protest,

they would just disappear from
the hospital and be executed.

Suffering and bloodshed is outrageous,
and it is unacceptable.

Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello,
hello, hello, hello, hello.

Foreign journalists are banned
from the country.

So cell phone cameras illegally
capture these pictures,

then they're posted on YouTube
and funneled out underground.

Virtually everybody involved
was filming

everything that was going
on around them.

It's sort of what I've been doing
on a micro level for a

much more important purpose than
my motorcycle adventures.

Four years earlier I'd set off on this
crash course on manhood, and now

here was the Arab Spring challenging
my very image of what manhood was.

I was nothing compared to people
that were going out on the

streets of Tripoli, the protests
being returned with gunfire.

My friends that I made in Libya,
they still had internet access.

So I was talking to them on
internet chat and email.

And they started telling
me, you know, their

neighbor was killed, their cousin
was arrested and beaten.

My friend Tariq went out to protest.

Two people were shot by snipers
right near him.

The media footage is one thing,
but when it's your friends

telling you personal stories
about people they're seeing

being killed, it takes on a whole
different level of meaning.

At this point, America
wasn't involved,

NATO wasn't involved, the
UN wasn't involved.

One of my friends said, why
doesn't anybody help us?

I could not imagine sitting
at home watching

on TV my friends being killed.

So I called Lauren at work,
and I said, you

need to come home from work,
I'm going to Libya.

That day, I made the plane reservation
for a plane leaving that evening.

My mother driving to the airport,
me in the car, and then I turn

the camera and look at Lauren, and
she just looks really pissed off.

I can't say that I was surprised,
but I was angry.

I wasn't as angry that he
was going as that he

was going to go, that day,
with no notice, no

time to get his stuff really
together, or anything.

I mean, I was pissed.

Today's February 28th, and
I'm in Cairo, Egypt.

I'll be taking a car to
the border tonight.

I hope to get across the border,
get to Benghazi, and

once I'm there, I'll document
what's going on and do

what I can to help in the effort
to overthrow Gaddafi.

Part of me intellectually knew it might
be a little bit ridiculous.

The same guy that had his family
bring him his clean laundry and

his groceries, now I was heading into
a war halfway across the world.

Moammar Gaddafi is showing
no sign of backing

down an 18-day struggle
for control of Libya.

Gaddafi appears to still be in
control, but anti-government

groups claim that they are now in
charge of much of eastern Libya.

Fuck.

Where are you coming from?

I'm going to Benghazi.

-Benghazi?
-Yes.

Okay.

I called Nori, and I said to Nori, you
know, Nori, I'm coming to Benghazi.

And he was like, yeah, man,
come on, it's cool.

And when he said that, he said it in, like,
his normal hippie-sounding voice.

And I thought when I got
to Benghazi, Nori

would just be like the
same Nori, the same

hippie, just hanging out, doing
his thing, peace and love.

But Nori walked in with a
flak jacket, fatigues, a

camouflaged boonie hat, and
he was completely serious.

When the war starts here, and
all the Gaddafi army going

out, the freedom, feeling your

body flying, smelling

something open inside you,
like fresh air, fresh air

exactly, like you're in
highland, you know,

and flying, and safe, safe.

And Benghazi already all have
this feeling, all man,

but then Terrible still lies
there worried about him.

This is a big hospital.

The guy is shooting his gun.

I hate the guns.

Yeah, I don't want to kill
anyone from Libya.

Not just Libya, anyone from the world.

At the beginning of the
war, Nouri said, I was

like, well, what do you want
to happen to Gaddafi?

He said, you know, I just want him to

leave and go live in his
tent and just go away.

Not like I want to catch Gaddafi
and I want us to kill him.

He doesn't have, like,
the hatred in him.

To welcome you guys is to
sign the chain to the...

Yeah, really, sign the chain.

Nice city to go.

People had started to organize
into small units.

Most of them were civilians.

Nouri had a friend named Ali, and
he was one of the rebels.

So, Ali is there when the
bomb was started.

A little guy died, but he survived.

His truck had been bombed
by Gaddafi's guys.

And we need to fight with
this car as well.

We do?

Yeah. This is the car that
we're all going in?

-Yeah.
-Really?
-Yeah.

We fix it.

We have emergency fix it.

Three guns down, 14 and a half.

-Yeah.
-We move.

Nothing stop us.

I asked what we need more and Matti said
we need the guns now, you know.

We start the game.

No games, war, big war.

Nuri and Ali are inside
a government building

getting papers to allow
us to get the weapons.

So I'm keeping my head
down here so that

nobody sees me and recognizes
me as a father.

Hopefully this war won't
last too long.

and nobody gets hurt.

I've been praying that
nobody gets hurt.

Qaddafi's jets had bombed
a rebel army base.

We went in looking for ammunition.

It still worked.

No, we're supposed to find a gun here.

Did you see anything?

At this point, Qadhafi's army was much
better equipped than the rebels.

Be careful.

Very few of the rebels had
any military experience.

A lot of them had never
handled a gun before.

Go for it, Nori.

Safety off now, yeah?

Put it on R.

On the other side.

At the point that I joined the
Revolution, that I had

fired a heavy machine gun, this
gave me more experience

than the guys that I was with,
the group that I was with.

People might say, well, you didn't
have military experience.

Neither did anybody else, really.

Ha!

That's how you put it in place, mate!

The guys who were fighting
at that stage in the war

were guys like us, you know,
independent groups,

small groups, put a weapon in
the back of a truck and go.

Previously, I've been
in war zones as an

observer, but this time
I was a participant.

And the feeling was completely
different.

I was on the inside.

I was dressed like everyone else.

I was assuming the risks
of other people.

For the first time in my life, I felt

like I was doing something
really important.

We were preparing for
the war and at the

same time we were watching
the war on television.

And at this point, Gaddafi
was winning the war.

Colonel Gaddafi's forces
are on the offensive.

With their superior firepower,
they push the

front line many miles east
to the oil town of Brega.

We decided that we would
go and recon Brega.

Because that was going to
be the next target.

Here is Benghazi, sir.

And here is the rest of Nuva.

We're going to identify
a defensive position,

where to set up the ditch, where
to set up the mortars.

Nuri had to go work at the army base, so
he wasn't going to be coming with us.

And he survived because of that.

We were at Ali's house before
we went to Brega.

And Ali said something
I'll never forget.

It's the last dinner.

You know last dinner?

Last supper?

No, it's not the last supper.

You sure?

Last dinner?

-Yes.
-What's happening to him tomorrow?

I don't know.

We went to break it

There were still civilians
there people had their

children in the street They've
been some concerned

All of a sudden the truck stopped
It was a set of ambush

Ben, you were out on the front lines
with rebel forces outside of Brega.

Give us the latest.

What's happening out there?

We were with them this morning,
and they came

under constant and heavy bombardment
by Qaddafi forces.

I talked to him on the phone for
a couple minutes on March 12th.

And he was actually on
his way to Brega.

And the next morning, I woke up
really early for some reason.

It was a Sunday, and I woke
up like six-something.

And I saw that Qaddafi's troops
had moved into Brega.

It was on TV, and I knew.

In all the years of his travels, I was
always terrified of that phone call.

And it never occurred to me that the

worst thing would be not
getting a phone call.

It would be silence.

♪

I was hit in the head during
whatever happened.

I was in and out of consciousness
for days.

I don't know where it was.

I was transported quite far.

And then I woke up in
prison to the sound

of a man being tortured
in the room above me.

I had this blindfold, and they
came and interrogated me.

And they started playing
video off my camera.

It was a clip of Nori.

At the end of the clip, I said, Nori, you
remind me every day why we fight.

And the interpreter said, You will
never see America again.

♪

I bit down my nails, cut down my toenails
with a piece of plastic

spoon, thinking they were going to
rip out my nails to torture me.

They never came interrogated me again.

I figured that they had enough
from the video camera.

They didn't need to ask
me any questions.

It was all there

Took me out three times a day
to go use the squat toilet.

These black bugs would
crawl into my cell at

night, climb on the walls,
climb on me sometimes.

Bugs that lived in the toilet.

Trash piled up, there were maggots.

And my OCD got really bad.

That was going to be the
rest of my life.

I would position myself under the
hole and stare up at the sky.

I thought America had satellites
that would see down through

the skyline and see me and I would
sit up there and sometimes

I'd make looks on my face of Real
terror, you know try to make

it look like I'm not doing well
So these guys would know

looking down the satellite man that Americans
like he's really in rough shape.

We got to get him out

I started to worry about everything.

I was really worried that
Qaddafi had sent

people after knowing his family
because of my belief.

I worried Lauren was gonna leave me.

Lauren, I've been patient
for years, but you

can't run off and expect
your girlfriend, you

know, to stick by you when you're
in prison for years.

And my mother, my mother
was all alone.

My parents got divorced when
I was only a few years old.

And I'd never known my father.

And I have no brothers or sisters.

So I made a decision
to go sacrifice not

just myself and Livia,
but my mother also.

And maybe it was all just
ridiculous and insane.

The whole thing, going back the
last four years of my life,

maybe we're very misguided and very
foolish and very reckless.

And yeah, I questioned whether
it was worth it.

And whether it was worth sacrificing
my family for it.

And my future family with Lauren.

It was a very rough time.

I spent-a-half months in
two different prisons,

basically sitting in a closet,
staring at the wall.

The guards watched the television
at the end of the hall.

And Qaddafi was holding
a press conference.

I started hearing talk of
a prisoner being traded.

And it was me that was being traded.

And then I heard Hillary Clinton
talking about trading for me.

The American government is negotiating
a deal to free Matthew Van Dyke.

Are you going tonight to one day or
appointment at the same time?

I was on one TV all the time.

Day after day, every single day,
all the news was about me.

People started bringing their children

up to the prison walls
to yell tons at me.

People were singing songs about me.

I heard this all day.

We're fighting for your freedom

But I now realize none of it was real.

My entire existence was in my head.

Having auditory hallucinations, it's a
side effect of solitary confinement.

I know that.

That place literally broke my mind.

When I boil it down to just two
sentences, it's like oh this

guy thought he was the center
of the war You know, what a

narcissistic asshole But I felt
like I completely disappeared

So it was a way that my mind said
no you do still exist And

you matter and people are looking
for you as opposed to the

reality that I felt before this started
Which was people think you're dead

I've been in prison for five
and a half months.

And one day, I heard a really
loud commotion.

And I immediately thought they are
going to come get me and kill me.

Then I realized maybe
these are Christmas.

And, uh, it was the best
day of my life.

That night I was sitting on
this sofa at this house

Watching my-in-law and on
CNN talking about me

escaping prison that day It was definitely
a surreal experience

♪

Tell us what it was like
when you finally heard

your son's voice for the
first time in so long.

It's just an unbelievable feeling.

It was, you know, joyous.

It felt like a weight was
lifted off my shoulders.

You get that queasy feeling
in your stomach.

It's just, it's just, it's so hard to
describe, and it was just wonderful.

Someone to the Corinthia Hotel.

There was just a lot of press there.

I called Lauren, like, is Norya okay?

Have you talked to Norya? And
she said, yes, he's fine.

But Olly was driving the truck that
I was in when I was captured.

His body was found in,
um, in a mass grave.

My strong advice to you will be
that it's time to go home.

I mean, you went through a very
difficult experience.

Um, I'm sure your mom
wants to see you.

And you also need to talk to some people
about what you went through.

I had had a personal taste of life
under an authoritarian regime.

and it's absolutely transforming.

♪

But what I had experienced
for about six months

was what Gaddafi had done to
the country for 40 years.

Qaddafi stole so many people's lives
and ended so many people's

lives and I felt guilt or remorse

or that I hadn't done enough.

♪

And then I, I actually, I felt.

Lauren started asking me
when I was coming home.

And...

I kept being evasive.

You know, I wanted to see Nori first.

And then Nori came, and uh...

I mean, I was really relieved
to see him.

Nori had a uniform for me, he
had a gun for me, you know,

he had this stuff set aside, he
had all this stuff for me.

Just like six months ago.

And we went to the Ministry
of Defence.

Nor explain my story

The prison experience
bought me a lot of

credibility which then allowed me
to openly join as an American

♪

They knew what I had
been through, they

knew the story, everybody
had been talking.

They were glad to have me.

and they welcomed me, they
did this Libyan dance and

clapping and handed me a weapon
that they had captured.

It was a nice welcome back.

Welcome back to the revolution.

So, how'd it feel?

Yeah, it was a nightmare.

It was horrible. I had to wake up every morning
and I didn't know where he was.

I didn't know if he was okay.

I had to go to bed every night
and didn't know where he was.

Didn't know what was happening to him.

I wanted him home.

And I made it very clear that
I wanted him to come home.

She's like, you know,
this is how you are.

This is a thrill thing.

I'm like, no, this is
really serious work.

It's the most important thing I'll ever
do in my life is helping this war.

And then I think she
sort of understood.

I don't know, I mean, people can think
whatever they want, right?

During the-a-half months I was in prison,
the war changed dramatically.

when NATO got involved.

And it was a totally different
war than it

was when we were just a
few guys in a truck.

The momentum had completely shifted from
Qaddafi's favorite to our favorite.

U.S.A.?

-Yeah, U.S.A.
-Huh?
-Yeah.

-Good.
-Obama?
-Obama!

Obama!

Obama!

I'd been in my brigade for maybe a
week or so when some of Qaddafi's

supporters came out of the desert and
ambushed one of our checkpoints.

Let's stop here and see what's
happening, all right?

Okay.

That was my first taste of like,
I am really, really in it now.

What about the situation here, man?

The situation is a checkpoint
was attacked.

Nobody saw anybody coming.

There's buildings up here
that they could have

had people positioned to
look around, spotters.

They would have seen
any attack coming.

They were just attacked in
the middle of the day.

They had nobody up on
top of the roofs.

There's no excuse for it, for people,
for this to have happened.

I came out of prison a much
different person.

I realized that I had a really close call,
and I had to be far more cautious.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Could you not
have your finger in the bin?

Please don't keep your
finger in the pin.

There you go.

First, the industry would think
it's hot, but then it wasn't.

First mission was in Antiba.

Somebody attacked the checkpoint,
too, I think.

Follow me, young man.

There's over a dozen guys dead.

We're out in the desert looking
for things to do.

In the past, it was easy to be both

behind the camera and in
front of the camera.

But while fighting in a war, it was
a more difficult thing to manage.

♪

You feel uncomfortable,
because you feel, even

though you're not acting,
you feel like an actor.

You have to be conscious of, what does
it look like on the camera side?

Here, Noah, let me get another angle.

And then you wonder, you know, is
this authentic, is this genuine?

Am I choosing my words a certain way?

Am I doing certain actions?

But at the same time, you're
trying to capture reality.

It's not easy to do.

Do you have some video about
how this guy's fight?

At times I felt that the camera
was a bit of a distraction.

I didn't want people to think I was there
primarily to film, because I wasn't.

I'm just going to shoot the camera, so no
one stops talking about the camera.

Now I'm going to shoot the camera, and

then no one will stop talking
about the camera.

But Nury recognized the importance
of the filming.

This is history.

I'm very proud of the family.

I got it.

Of course.

I also want to do all the work
that the other two are doing.

Yeah, okay.

And I'll film while I'm
doing it, but I'm

not going to stand around
and be a panelist.

So you fight with your two hands.

John, I can't.

Yeah, that's how it's going to be.

Yeah, okay.

But one time we were in the Jeep,
and we started taking fire.

And I basically fell out of a jeep.

Shit!

Fuck, Nori.

My gun's in the truck.

Huh?

My gun's in the Jeep.

Here's this dual role that
I'm trying to play.

I'm trying to affect events, but at
the same time document events.

Nori has his gun in his hand and I have
my camera and we're under fire.

What am I gonna do?

I was like what am I?

Am I a filmmaker or am I a fighter?

♪

Sir, where's Qaddafi's hometown?

This is where his power still was.

And once CERT fell, the
war had been over.

That's how you know where some of
the first soldiers in here,

they were on the front line because
there's still green flags.

The green flag was the flyer Gaddafi

There's a lot of explosions coming.

Supposedly it's Tate Obama.

So hopefully that's all it is.

So thank you for everything,
coming for help, you know.

I just, I need to get the peace, man.

I thank you for everything.

If the shooting coming to you,
I send you in the good

box in your mom, for a souvenir,
for having you here.

Ha ha ha.

Bye. Bye.

Okay, what's that way like?

Is it good?

It's not good.

Shit.

When we got the cert,
Qaddafi's guys were

firing at us from buildings,
they were using snipers.

Where is the enemy?

Nobody knows?

If they were die-hard loyalists, they
were not going to surrender.

This was the most filmed
war in history.

It's camera zooming.

You know, guys with cell phone cameras
in the middle of gunfights.

Cell phone and camera in one
hand, AK-47 in the other.

And these guys, their concept of war is what
they saw on television in the 80s.

Guys standing up with machine guns
by themselves in the middle of

♪

ammunition at the enemy.

They want another picture taken
with the big gun things

that they can they can show friends
to family to women.

They like to impress

Yeah, I felt it as well.

Everybody wants something they
can share on Facebook.

Everybody tries to create
their idealized image

of how they want to be seen
and who they want to be.

♪

♪

Oh It's not going to work at all.

I'm about to go on a
patrol inside CERT

and I'll be seeing you
guys getting ready.

♪

After we took the neighborhood,
we went into clear

houses to make sure there
weren't snipers or enemy

that were just waiting until
we got inside to attack us.

we're in a neighborhood which is a

reference only vehicle just
three of us in it

Fuck.

Good job.

Gaddafi had handed out a lot
of weapons to people.

So we wanted to capture
whatever weapons

were there so it could be
used against us later.

We were constantly under
fire, where the sound,

like, it's a pew, pew, just
like that, just like

you would hear in a movie, constantly
over your head.

And you can't tell how high it
is or how low it is until you

hear like something metal behind
you get hit and then ding,

and then you know, okay, time to take
cover because that was close.

But you get so desensitized
to hearing that.

Your thoughts are real close.

Even though I was in the war, you
know, the OCD never goes away.

I spilled sugar on my truck.

This is a huge problem.

Yeah, I still worried about sugar.

I worry about the bottoms of shoes.

Putting my mouth in a bowl
after somebody else.

Yeah, you know what to do it.

-You do it.
-You do it.

-Yeah.
-Yeah.
-Do it.

Do it.

Yes. Yes.

But given that I'd just been through
prison and was in a war,

putting my mouth in the bowl didn't
seem like such a big deal anymore.

Aah!

I just want to go to school,
now you're fighting, man.

All right.

Hey, hey, hey, okay,
just take it easy.

All right, you're okay, you're okay.

There were times that Nway and I would
take the press to the front line.

Move up here a little bit.

It was very strange, because
when I was in Iraq and

Afghanistan, I was filming soldiers,
and now I was the soldier.

Baltimore resident Matthew Van Dyke
is armed and fighting with

rebels in Libya just weeks after he escapes
from a Qaddafi-held prison.

When I saw myself in news
reports fighting, it

became validation that I was
a real rebel fighter.

Here it was for the world to see
that I was where I belonged.

♪

♪

♪

For two years, for nothing.

♪

There were things I saw
during the war,

injuries, deaths that were
difficult to deal with.

You can't capture it all, and you
can't tell on the camera.

You know, the randomness
of death in a war.

Everything's fine one minute, people
are laughing and joking, and

then the next, something hits out of nowhere,
explosion, people are dead.

You'll destroy it.

No bloody day, yeah?

Yeah.

I am.

I'm trying to, you see.

Okay, I love you very much.

I called home on satellite
phones a couple

times to journalists to let
me use their phones.

Okay, well, bye.

It was hard to talk to Lauren.

Thank you so much.

It was an extremely different
existence to hers.

I mean, life on the front
line in an Arab

revolution is not like
life in Baltimore.

Her problems were there was
a student that was bad at

school, and my problem was, you
know, I saw a guy whose

body was on fire or a guy whose
head was opened by shrapnel.

Yeah, we were living in two
totally different worlds.

Did you ever kill anyone?

Well...

One day, towards the end
of the war in Sirte, we

had squeezed Qaddafi's forces
into a small area.

One of the commanders in my brigade
spotted an enemy in a window.

They wanted me to shoot the guy.

How many guys?

Up until that point in the
war, we've been fighting

at ranges that I could not see
the face of the enemy.

It was, you know, maybe muzzle
flashes from the

enemy firing at us, or, you
know, the enemies in

that building or in that direction,
you know, fire at them.

This was my first experience.

I've never shot in a person before.

-Oh, shut up.
-I'm not doing it.

I'm not doing it. I'm not doing
it. I'm not doing it.

I'm not doing it. I'm not doing
it. I'm not doing it.

My commander was yelling
for me to hurry up

and shoot the guy before he
got out of the window.

He's here.

You can't see because he's
between these houses.

You have to see like this.

One of the rebels, I handed him my
camera, and I said, film this.

♪

♪

Matthew!

You've got him, so go down.

I wasn't sure, I couldn't be
sure if I had hit him.

And then one of the other
guys, I saw the guy kind

of pop up and look around and
then leave the window.

And all of a sudden, I
felt very conflicted.

I feel like I failed because
I missed my target,

but at the same time, part of
me is glad that I missed.

Do you think there was any part of
you that missed him on purpose?

No.

No, I didn't miss him on purpose, and
that's part of what's disturbing.

Because I tried to hit him.

I tried.

I had this image of who I always
wanted to be and for years

I'd struggled to find that in myself
and to become that person.

But I just had myself filmed trying
to take another human life.

And what did that say about me?

October 20th, the day after I
tried to kill the guy, we

heard rumors that a convoy had
been stopped trying to

flee from Sirte, and that Qaddafi
may have been captured.

A lot of the rebels who
were there, they

had cell phone cameras
to film themselves.

What would I have done if I was there?

♪

It's like the war is over.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

When I was in prison, there were a lot of
things I thought I wouldn't do again.

and going to the beach
was one of them.

But one day, Noreen and
I went to the ocean

and it was incredible.

Be careful

We were back to just Dory
and Matt, a Libyan,

and his American friend
who had come to visit.

Oh, no, man, I got water on my boots

♪

♪

We found a carpet with
Gaddafi's face on it.

I told Nori, you know, go ahead and
step on his face if you want.

And Nori wouldn't do it.

He said, like, why, why do
something like that?

It's just, he didn't want to,
like, be like Gaddafi.

♪

It wasn't about revenge,
this was about freedom.

♪

♪

♪

♪

So, five years ago you set off
on a crash course in manhood.

Looking back on it now,
were you successful?

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Yeah, I got it, yeah, okay,

yeah, I got it, I got it.