North Texas Filmmaker Flees Libya

A filmmaker from The Colony returned from Libya this weekend after a photojournalist was killed.

Mickey Grant, who was shooting a documentary, captured the violence between Moammar Gadhafi's troops and the people rising up against them.

He had planned to stay in Libya longer, but but he left in a hurry Friday after a photojournalist working for Qatar-based television network Al-Jazeera was killed. Gadhafi's forces are suspected in the journalist's death.

"I was having acid reflux left and right," Grant said. "I was thinking to myself, 'I'm a little bit too old for this kind of stuff.'"

He has visited Libya three times, capturing on video the instability of a war-torn country.

"Gadhafi has treated his people probably worse than any dictator, maybe any dictator in history," Grant said. "It's horrific. It's very common to see people bandaged up everywhere, all day long, or someone who's just lost an arm."

The documentary maker said he wants to show North Texas and the rest of the world what's happening under Gadhafi's regime.

"They assassinate people," Grant said. "They are recording what's happening, who's doing what. They are attempting to find out as many names of people who have protested."

He said he sees the violence ending sooner rather than later as the protesters figure out how to form a democracy.

"They want to come to terms in an organized manner of who they are, how they're to be governed, and most of all, how to have a great future," Grant said.

Grant's first documentary about Libya, "Injection," has been released three times with updated footage shot since 2004. The film is about the reuse of syringes in African clinics and the resulting spread of HIV because of it.

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