I travelled to Benban, a village in southern Egypt, to film the Al Mermah festival — an open-desert horse race where men spend fortunes on animals and compete for no prize money at all. It's run purely for the honour of the village.
I didn't stay on the street for long. I was pulled into the Diwans by the Al Ja'afra tribe, and the rest of the day turned into something else: Tahteeb stick fighting that's been practised here for four and a half thousand years, and men who can name thirteen generations of their own bloodline without pausing.
I went in thinking I was filming a race. What I came away thinking about was how much of this the rest of us have traded away, and whether we noticed at the time.