After football, soltar pipas is Brazil’s most popular sport. In the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, flying kites is more than a leisurely escape from on-the-ground realities—it’s a venue for battle, with the entire sky as the arena.

Kite designs and airborne “cutting” strategies have been passed through generations, from rooftop to rooftop. Filmmakers Guilherme Tensol and Leandro HBL spent time in Rocinha, Rio’s largest favela, among its young pipa warriors and elder statesmen, absorbing their secrets and documenting their stories.