Probably the most thrilling part of my job – what really gets me excited – is learning out about new projects that I find fresh, intriguing, and that I’d really love to see – whether because of content, style, structure, talent, some combination of those, or all of them together.

Like this one – a project that has my attention, and I hope will have yours as well, given the subject matter – one that I’d guess many aren’t at all familiar with… 

“Papa Machete: A Short Film About Haitian Machete Fencing” highlights Alfred Avril, an aging farmer in Haiti who also happens to be a master of Haitian machete fencing – a form of martial arts that doesn’t exactly get much coverage – outside of Haiti, anyway. Ideas like “fencing” and “martial arts” aren’t often spoken of in an Afrocentric context, so I’ll always embrace the opportunity to feature any projects that do.

Capoeira, the Brazilian martial art, is likely one of the most popular and widely-known. There are of course others, often variations of each other; some include weapons; others do not. Like Dambe, which is a form of boxing popular in parts of West Africa, including areas in northern Nigeria, and Cameroon.

So there’s an education here to be had.

The project just passed its Kickstarter campaign fundraising goal, raising $10,500 (its target was $10,000), with 19 days still to go. So you can still contribute if you can, allowing the filmmakers to make the best film that they can. It benefited from being featured as a “Kickstarter staff pick of the day” project.

The project hails from Executive Producers/Writers Jason Fitzroy Jeffers & Keisha Rae Witherspoon (who alerted me to the project) and will be directed by Jonathan David Kane.

Watch their video pitch below, and make your contribution to the campaign by clicking within the widget underneath: