Point and Shoot

After seeing a TV show about an Australian adventurer, 27-year-old Matthew Van Dyke decides to take a “crash course in manhood.” He buys a motorcycle and a video camera and spends four years rambling around the world and filming everything he sees. Much like Van Dyke himself, his adventures are peculiar, yet undeniably interesting — particularly when he arrives in Middle East war zones, befriends soldiers and films their collective escapades. His footage is sometimes goofy, but it takes a dramatic turn when he lands in Libya. There, his friends are Libyans immersed in the rebellion against Muammar Quaddafi, and Van Dyke decides to join forces with them. Suddenly, he’s signed on for an upper-level class in manhood when he gets captured by Quaddafi’s forces. Sharply directed by Marshall Curry (If a Tree Falls, Mountainfilm 2011), Point and Shoot won the grand prize for documentaries at the Tribeca Film Festival.