Rob Munday
When you think of martial arts films, what springs to mind? Bruce Lee in his iconic yellow jumpsuit, Jackie Chan’s insane stunts or a bloodied Jean-Claude Van Damme battling in a Thai fight club? While these movie stars brought martial arts to the masses with their action-packed portrayals, today’s short film pick Elephant Food is for the Strongest Teeth, from co-directors Michael Kinsella-Perks and Will McBain, is aiming for a much more raw and authentic look at Nigeria’s Dambe.
Probably like most of you, I’d never heard of Dambe before watching Kinsella-Perks and McBain’s insightful documentary. A brutal combat sport dating back centuries, the fights see two opponents go head-to-head in three rounds, punching (only with one wrapped hand known as the “spear”, the other hand is known as the “shield”) and kicking with the aim to “kill” (knock-down) your fellow fighter. Elephant Food is for the Strongest Teeth isn’t just interested in looking at the specifics of the sport though, it’s more interested in its heart and soul, taking a more poetic view of the rituals and sense of community around the fights.
Dambe fighter Ebola (L) preparing for a fight.
Described as a “passion project born out of two friends shared love of film, music and boxing” by it’s co-creators, the directorial duo felt inspired to capture Dambe on film after realising “it had seldom before been represented in moving image”, particularly in a way that brought “the nuance, emotion and spirituality of the sport to life”. Eager to highlight local voices in their story, the pair turned to the internet to start their search for people who could help them “tell an authentic story from the perspective of the people who live and breathe this ancient sport”.
One such person was author and journalist Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, who helped Kinsella-Perks and McBain get in contact with the main focus of their doc, fighter Ebola. With their research complete, all the was left to do was to travel to Africa to actually begin shooting their film, but things weren’t go to be that simple.
“We put down our own money on the cheapest flights we could find and traveled there against all sensible advice!”
“In 2018, the Nigerian army was back on the offensive against Boko Haram”, the pair explain. “The heartlands of Dambe, in Nigeria’s north, sat in the middle of this conflict and kidnapping was now rife. After some weighing up of the security risks, we put down our own money on the cheapest flights we could find and traveled there against all sensible advice! Will’s family ties to West Africa led us to reach out to Daniel Israel, an ex BBC Hausa cameraman, now an engineer, who was central to our ability to criss-cross our way between Kano, Abuja and Kaduna. Israel, would also link us with a retired Major in the Nigerian army, who looked out for us by providing daily security updates.”
The resulting film, shot with borrowed equipment and created around the pair’s day jobs, was surely worth the risk, as not only does it provide an immersive and insightful glimpse into Dambe, it’s an impressive calling card for its creators. Talking to the pair about their aims for the short, they revealed they hoped that it would “cross borders” and “shine a spotlight onto this spiritually rooted martial art” and I think it has done just that.