Clarck Ntambwe: Boxing Rebuilt Life After Father's Murder

Clarck Ntambwe walked into a boxing gym in Goma with one goal: learn to kill the men who murdered her father. The Democratic Republic of the Congo fighter arrived at a women's club run by Balezi "Kibomango" Bagunda, a former child soldier turned champion who had built a refuge for survivors of violence. Her story now anchors Fight Like a Girl, a feature film from director Matthew Leutwyler that releases in UK cinemas 22 May.

Kibomango refused to let Ntambwe train until she abandoned thoughts of retribution, Leutwyler told The Guardian. "We sat her down and said: 'You cannot join the gym if that's the case. That's not what we do,'" the American director recalled. Ntambwe confirmed her initial motive in the same interview. "At first, when I do boxing, it really was to get revenge on the people who killed my dad," she said. "In the gym they could see the anger." Her grandfather had been Kibomango's first trainer, weaving her deeper into the sport's fabric.

How Kibomango Turned Rage Into Resilience

Kibomango was killed in January 2025 by M23 rebels while helping evacuate children from a village under attack in eastern Congo. Leutwyler had been filming a documentary about the trainer's life — child soldier at 12, overthrower of governments, a hand grenade that destroyed one eye, then reinvention as a boxer who fought on ESPN cards in Russia and Venezuela. The director met Kibomango five years earlier after spotting photos of his fighters on Instagram. "He wasn't teaching these girls to become pros," Leutwyler explained. "They were all victims of sexual violence to some degree so he was using boxing as a way for them to get their independence back."

Ntambwe makes her acting debut in the film, playing Aisha, the gym's most committed fighter. South African actor Ama Qamata stars as the lead boxer haunted by trauma. Qamata spent three weeks learning the sport with Kibomango on set. "He was very strict during the boxing scenes," she said, per The Guardian. "A lot of my training interactions with him were brutal. But it mattered to him that I knew what I was doing in the ring." Qamata, who fronts L'Oréal and Adidas campaigns across sub-Saharan Africa, said the experience reshaped her view of the phrase "fight like a girl" from insult to badge of survival.

Ntambwe now lives in Seattle and watches boxing daily, though she told the outlet that North Seattle gym fees put regular training out of reach. She reached the final of the African Boxing Championships under Kibomango's guidance. The film premiered at festivals last year and mixes professional actors with Goma residents, lending raw texture to scenes shot against Congo's escalating conflict.

Source: theguardian.com