Quidditch: Documentary Following UCLA Team in the Works

Author's Note: For those unfamiliar with the sport of quidditch, a basic introduction to the sport can be found here.

The team from UCLA has been one of the top teams in the International Quidditch Association for a couple years now.

Last season, the team took second at the IQA World Cup in Kissimmee, Fla., going undefeated throughout the tournament before losing to the University of Texas in the championship game.

The season before that, UCLA Quidditch finished eighth overall at World Cup V in Randall's Island, N.Y.

Now, a full-length documentary following that UCLA team at World Cup V is nearing completion. Mudbloods—A Feature Documentary is now just waiting to acquire finishing funds.

The World Cup V team from UCLA is a compelling story because of the way it bursts onto the scene that year, along with the entire West Region.

Up until that point, quidditch had been ruled mainly by teams from the northeastern U.S., with few teams outside that region making their World Cup appearances until World Cup V (with the notable exceptions of Texas A&M and LSU, who had both been participating since World Cup III).

At World Cup V, UCLA went from a little-known anomaly from the upstart West to one of the growing powerhouses in the sport.

At Randall's Island, UCLA went 2-2 in pool play, beating Yale and Vassar while losing to the University of Michigan and four-time defending champions Middlebury College.  That gave the Bruins one of the three bracket-play bids from their group, allowing them to start an unexpected run of success in bracket play.

In their first game of bracket play, they were matched up against a familiar foe: USC.  While the game was close, UCLA eventually came out on top with a 70*-60 win. UCLA seeker Jeff Lin had one of the most bizarre snitch grabs of the tournament, catching the snitch just outside a bathroom.

Then UCLA took down Michigan State, 100*-40.

That set up a quarterfinals rematch with Middlebury. Middlebury pulled ahead 50-10, and then chaos broke loose. UCLA scored a goal to bring the game back into snitch range, but at the same time, Middlebury pulled the snitch. 

However, the Middlebury seeker's headband was pulled off as he was making the grab, which under the rules in place at the time, would negate the grab. After a lengthy 45-minute delay, it was eventually ruled that the ref's initial decision would stand, and Middlebury was declared the winners. 

Middlebury would eventually go on to win the whole tournament.

Aside from following the UCLA team, the documentary also follows Alex Benepe, the commissioner of the International Quidditch Association, as he goes about organizing and running the tournament.

The Mudbloods documentary is groundbreaking in that will be the most complete documentation of the burgeoning sport of quidditch to date. It will provide an in-depth look into what it's like to be a part of this sport. Perhaps someday UCLA quidditch will even be a household name around the country, not just within the quidditch community.