The Spirit Circle: Documentary traces the origins of Bengaluru’s Ultimate Frisbee community

Faces of Bengaluru’s 60-minute documentary on the mixed gender sport gets two screenings this weekend, after which it will head to an OTT platform.

Vikas Badiger made the 60 minute documentary on Ultimate Frisbee in Bengaluru

When photographer-turned-documentary maker Vikas Badiger started a page called Faces of Bengaluru in 2015, his plan was to replicate the Humans of New York idea and present stories from, of and by the city. “The idea came from the fact that there isn’t any Bengaluru narrative out there in Kannada or English. There was a Humans of Bangalore page, but it wasn’t very active. I had just come back after completing an MBA degree, photography and the Faces of Bengaluru page was a side hustle for a while. It was only in 2020 January that I decided to produce a couple of stories as documentaries – one was on the Aravani Art Project learning photography. Sports and culture are what I wanted to tap into when I started this non-fiction site. I wanted to see where it goes in terms of the reach and the people who watch. Unfortunately, shortly after I quit my job, the pandemic broke and it became tough, even to produce anything. However, I continued doing stories about. So, yeah, 2020 is when it really took off. Until then, I had been planning, but was not skilful enough in terms of capturing the visuals correctly or the business side of it and looking for sponsors,” Vikas explains.

His next, is a 60-minute documentary called The Spirit Circle about the Ultimate Frisbee community in Bengaluru. Why a film on ultimate frisbee? “It’s a fascinating sport, especially because it is a mixed-gender game. I wouldn’t call it woke, but that is the kind of sport we need in today’s times. There are no referees, you need to maintain self-decorum and not just be motivated to win and that differentiates it from a lot of other sports. I used to play cricket earlier and the idea of having someone from another gender play with me or against me is something I would have never thought of. Of course, tennis and badminton have mixed double games, but that is a two-people sport. Understanding spaces among genders has been a huge part of doing this documentary. My team and I then thought of doing it as a Bengaluru origins story, even though there have been a few stories about Ultimate Frisbee in the public domain. The Spirit Circle looks at who started it, how they got the first disc to Bengaluru and the rules they followed,” he says. Despite being around for more than a decade, Ultimate Frisbee is not a sport with a large following. “That’s where Faces of Bengaluru comes in. I wanted to present stories that are not told by many people,” he adds.

How much research went into the film, considering 2007-2008 is when Ultimate Frisbee became a sport? “It started as a recreational game in 2005, but it was in 2007/2008 that they formalized it with rules (much like rugby). Today, India has the most mixed gender teams in the world. This is what we have tapped into in the documentary. There is not a lot of content to research, so I spoke to people who have documented it in the past, original founders of Ultimate Frisbee in Bengaluru, former captains, etc. At that point, we had a lot of content, but speaking to them also gave us a direction on how to condense it,” says Vikas.

The Spirit Circle will be screened at the Rangoli Art Centre, MG Road, Bengaluru on March 26, at 11.30 am and 1 pm. Following this, the team is hopeful of getting it on to an OTT platform. “We are in talks with an aggregator and hopefully this should come through soon. Else, we will put in on YouTube soon enough,” Vikas signs off.

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