‘Blood and Water’ Star Ama Qamata to Play Boxer in ‘Fight Like a Girl’

Rising South African actress Ama Qamata, the star of Netflix’s smash hit blood and waterhas signed on to star as a female boxer in to star fight like a girlan upcoming feature from writer/director Matthew Leutwyler (the river why, Mysterious).

Qamata will star alongside Nigerian actor Hakeem Kae-Kazim (godzilla vs kongstarz tvs black sails) as a young Congolese woman forced to work in an illegal mineral mine who manages to escape her captors and find a new life after joining a women’s boxing club in the border city of Goma.

The film, billed as the first Western narrative feature to be shot entirely in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is inspired by a real-life boxing club that Leutwyler and producing partner Anton Laines have been following for the past two years as part of a upcoming documentary series. Several members of the club will play supporting roles in the film.

Rwandan actors Malaika Uwamahoro, Kennedy Mazipaka and Arthur Nkusi also star. Congolese boxing champion Clark Ntambwe will make her acting debut in fight like a girl.

Laines will produce the film through KG28Media, the production company he runs with Leutwyler. Qamata’s manager, Yvette Davis Gayle, will also serve as producer, with Colin Gayle serving as executive producer through Gayles’ Africa Creative Agency company.

Congolese NBA star Serge Ibaka of the Milwaukee Bucks and his Ouenzé Entertainment partner Jordi Vilà Sánchez will also serve as executive producers on fight like a girl. This will be the company’s first narrative feature film project.

“I had to go through a lot of obstacles from growing up in Congo to becoming an NBA champion, and this is a story about Congo and Africa and how sports can help us get through the difficult times in our lives,” Ibaka said in a statement. “The story of these African women is inspiring and needs to be told.”

In addition to his feature film, which includes the 2010 drama the river why starring Amber Heard, William Hurt, and Zach Gilford, and the 2015 sci-fi horror film MysteriousLeutwyler runs an NGO, We are Limitless, which has helped provide education and healthcare to orphans and children in need in Rwanda and Congo for the past decade.

Qamata recently wrapped up the third season of the teen mystery series blood and waterin which she plays a teenager trying to navigate the complicated world of a South African secondary school.