Shadows of a Leader: Qaddafi's Female Bodyguards

In 1981, seven Libyan exiles formed the core opposition group to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Thirty years later, they are back to their country only to inherit the mess he left. The film is an intricate blend of rare first-hand accounts, propaganda archival material turned on its head, evocative cinematography and an untold history of a country.

Featuring real interviews and archive footage, this documentary gives an overview of Gaddafi's tyrannical reign over Libya from his early life until his death in 2011.

At first glance, Matthew VanDyke—a shy Baltimore native with a sheltered upbringing and a tormenting OCD diagnosis—is the last person you’d imagine on the front lines of the 2011 Libyan revolution. But after finishing grad school and escaping the U.S. for "a crash course in manhood," a winding path leads him just there. Motorcycling across North Africa and the Middle East and spending time as an embedded journalist in Iraq, Matthew lands in Libya, forming an unexpected kinship with a group of young men who transform his life. Matthew joins his friends in the rebel army against Gaddafi, taking up arms (and a camera). Along the way, he is captured and held in solitary confinement for six terrifying months.

“There was excitement in the air,” says Donga, now in his late twenties, describing his feelings when the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s rule broke out in 2011. He was 19, living in Misrata, and boldly went to film the fighting with a friend. A decade later, in a hotel in Istanbul, where he has been living since he was wounded in battle, he looks back on the past ten years through excerpts from his videos. And he reflects on how that period has affected him.

BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD charts the journey of 19 year old Tecca Zendik, a contestant in the Miss Net World contest, Libya's first every beauty competition. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi hosts this competition and the film includes extraordinary footage of the Colonel. Tecca's story reveals an incredible conclusion no-one could have guessed when private jests transported the beauties to the country feared by the West in the 1980's.

Haja Fatma, a mother to eight children, tells the tale of family life in Tripoli during the Libyan Revolution. Women, young and old, all contributed during these hostile months in their own unique way. A human portal into the acts of ordinary people in their hope for freedom.

In life, the Libyan leader ruled with an iron fist for 42 years and treated Libya's wealth as his own. He died the richest man on the planet with a fortune of $150 billion. A dictatorial leader in life, the spell of Gaddafi's money remained in place after his death, triggering a ruthless race to find his missing billions. Two journalists pick up the trail of a mysterious $12.5 billion in cash, flown out of Libya in the dead of night just months before Gaddafi's demise.

In response to political pressure from Senator Lillian DeHaven, the U.S. Navy begins a program that would allow for the eventual integration of women into its services. The program begins with a single trial candidate, Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil, who is chosen specifically for her femininity. O'Neil enters the grueling training program under the command of Master Chief John James Urgayle, who unfairly pushes O'Neil until her determination wins his respect.

This story is not a figment of the scriptwriters’ imagination; these are real living facts. New Russian action movie Shugaley is a story about the war that is going on today. The film is based on real events taking place in Libya today. Two Russian social scientists, Maxim Shugaley and Samir Seifan, are invited to the conflict-torn country to carry out a public opinion research. In the course of their work, they come over the information, that would be damaging to the puppet government if made public. Russians are kidnapped and tortured in a private prison for more than a year. The situation cannot be resolved peacefully, so the Russian side is preparing a rescue operation.