For many, it is a dream come true.
Farzad Sangari, director of the quidditch documentary “Mudbloods,” said he was excited to turn the fictional game into a reality. The film was released worldwide on Oct. 21. “Mudbloods” is not only his first full-length feature film, but it is the first one to document the sport as played on the ground.
Sangari followed the quidditch team for UCLA to the fifth annual Quidditch World Cup in New York, he said.
“I was really interested in taking this impossible, fictional thing and making it a reality,” he said.
Sangari said he was attracted to the team’s creativity and enthusiasm for the sport, and he became interested in documenting the people behind the idea.
The film reveals a new side of quidditch by capturing what it means to play it, he said. It also reveals the brutality of the sport, which is inherent to the game. People are often surprised by how serious the sport is taken and how much competition is involved, he said.
“I was really lucky to go on this journey with them,” Sangari said. “It was a mixture of joy and elation; defeat and despair.”
The take-home message is to follow your dreams, he said.
“These people had an idea, and they took it and they didn’t let their imagination hinder their desire or their determination to make this a real thing,” Sangari said. “This idea took them to the World Cup. They followed their dreams, and that is an admirable action.”
Seth Kazmar, president and coach of the UNM quidditch team, called the Ridgebacks, is doing just that.
Kazmar is working to make the quidditch team a reality on campus and in Albuquerque. Most of the time people do not realize the intensity of the sport, he said. The players don’t wear any pads for protection.
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“It’s pretty aggressive,” he said. “It did start with Harry Potter, but it’s not as associated with Harry Potter anymore just because people wanted to take it more seriously.”
Kazmar said this year’s turnout is better than the year before, with at least 14 people trying out for the team. They even had some rugby players join them.
Quidditch is a sport that almost anyone who has played a sport could enjoy, he said.
Chandler Smith, the Southwest regional director for U.S. Quidditch, a nonprofit organization, said he started his own quidditch team at Oklahoma Baptist University. He said his love of the game prompted him to volunteer with U.S. Quidditch and eventually led him to work at the Quidditch World Cup.
“To work with a nonprofit you really have to have a passion and desire to do it,” Smith said.
He now manages the teams in the Southwest and the volunteers at sporting events. He said he enjoyed working with the nonprofit group because of the people and the vision they had for the sport.
For the last two years, the winners of the World Cup have come from the Southwest region, he said.
“(The Southwest) has the highest caliber(of teams) in the sport,” Smith said. “We always have the top-A teams in the World Cup ... We are the powerhouse.”
Moriah Carty is the assistant culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at cultureassistant @dailylobo.com or on Twitter @MoriahCarty.
