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2K | 5.1| Dolby
in select Cinemas 2026
Genre: Drama - 118 mins
SYNOPSIS
Fight Like A Girl
Based on a true story.
Safi, 19, has been kidnapped from her village by a rebel group and forced to work in an illegal mineral mine. But after two years, she makes a harrowing escape from her captors, and treks for six days through the east Congolese jungle, to the border city of Goma in search of a new life.
Safi finds herself living on the unfriendly streets of Goma selling sambaza for a local fisherman. One night after deftly fending off an attacker with a ferocious punch, she catches the eye of the legendary boxing champ who takes her under his wing and brings her into his club where he is teaching a ragtag group of female boxers.
Seeing fighting as a way to get out of the poverty and violence that grips her country, she signs up for the team… but soon discovers that there is more to boxing than being able to throw a powerful punch…
… and maybe there is more to life than simply surviving.
Fight Like a Girl TRL - Official Sneak Peek
A KG28 MEDIA production
In association with Africa Creative Agency
and Ouenze Entertainment and PlasTechFree Products
Fight Like A Girl
Ama Qamata
Hakeem Kae-Kazim
Malaika Uwamahoro
Arthur Nkusi
Bahali Ruth
Kennedy Mazimpaka
Introducing
Clarck Ntambwe
Composer
Coby Brown
Costume Designer
Sissi Ngamije
Editor
Matthew Leutwyler
Co-Producers
Ama Qamata • Clarisse Umutoniwase
Production Designers
Omar Mouktar Sibomana • Antoine Nshimiyamana
Director of Photography
Richard Henkels
Executive Producers
Serge Ibaka • Jordi Vilà Sánchez
• Colin Gayle • David Quinney
Executive Producers
Adrian Colbert • Kent Spence • Rebecca White
Producers
Innocent Munyeshuri • Yvette Gayle
Produced by
Anton Laines
Written & Directed by
Matthew Leutwyler
Director’s Statement
Fight Like A Girl
I was first introduced to the stories of these women and their legendary coach six years ago while working in East Congo with my NGO “We Are Limitless” and immediately Anton (producing partner) and I knew we needed to find a way to bring their stories to a broader audience.
We decided to cast many of the real women of the boxing team as well as other non-actors in key roles to add
to the authenticity of the story as well as offer work opportunities to the people of the area. This combining of documentary filming techniques utilizing non-actors in uncontrolled environments with our more structured, scripted narrative helped to capture the vibrant reality of life in the region.
Shooting in East Congo brings its own unique challenges but when the on-going conflict between the military and M23 rebels began to boil over only days before the beginning of principal photography, a big decision needed to be made about whether we could actually shoot the movie at all. The producers and I discussed moving the filming to neighboring Uganda but in the end we felt like Goma, and Congo in general, was such an important "character" in the story and we could not do it justice shooting it in any other country. Production Manager Clarisse Umutoniwase doubled our hired armed security for the production and we agreed to work our shooting schedule around military hot zones as they popped up.
We made the creative decision to keep most of the locations "live" and have the professional actors interact with whatever street kids, ex-child soldiers, shop
owners, street vendors, and real boxers from the area that where there on the day... giving the scenes an unpredictable vitality and energy.
For me, cinema is at its most exciting when it takes viewers to places they have never seen and introduces them to people they will never have the chance to
meet. Stories that provoke conversation and create positive change in the world -- and that is exactly what we hope to do with this feature and the
accompanying docu-series that we are currently shooting.
UPDATE: The recent escalation of the conflict in East Congo and the death of Kibomango, our friend and real life coach of the women’s boxing team, brings
more urgency for us to get this film out to a larger audience in hopes of pointing a much needed spotlight onto this enormous humanitarian crisis.