Surrender to the Sound: A Student Film About Women’s Soccer Fans in Los Angeles

May 6, 2024
By Madee Sabatier

Hello there! My name is Madee Sabatier, and I am a Content Creator and Social Media Assistant at Girls Soccer Network. In addition to working at GSN, I am a graduating senior at Chapman University at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, where I am pursuing a major in Documentary Filmmaking. Throughout the last year and a half, I have been pouring my heart and soul into my senior thesis film, Surrender to the Sound. It is easily the biggest passion project of my life, and I am so excited to share it with you all.

Surrender to the Sound is about Angel City FC’s unrivaled women’s soccer supporter groups, dubbed ‘La Fortaleza,’ as they devotedly take on their second season. In particular, this film focuses on one main subject, Lesly Vanessa, as she navigates her personal struggles through her second family, AC Pandemonium, one of Angel City FC’s official supporter groups. Other supporters, such as Ruby Badio and Kris Resari, emphasize the passion and hard work required to be involved with women’s soccer supporter groups. Through this primarily vérité film, the supporters stay loyal through loss and not only redefine what it means to be a women’s soccer fan but to represent LA.

Every NWSL team has at least one supporter group, but Angel City FC is the only league with six official supporter groups–the most supporter groups of any NWSL team. Their first-ever game was a sold-out crowd of 22,000 soccer fans. Angel City FC cultivates a community environment with meet-and-greets, internship programs, and other community outreach programs. Most of all, the team creates an environment where fans can have fun and feel good.

In addition to incredible crowds, Angel City FC fans are known for their tifos. “Tifo is the word used to describe a colorful, vibrant, and usually choreographed visual display by the football supporters,” according to an article by Goal.com. Furthermore, tifo is an Italian word that actually means “typhus fever,” which can hypothetically cause an outbreak of delirium. The supporters that make a tifo are therefore known as tifosi, which is Italian for “those infected with typhus.” This definition is taken figuratively, not literally, as many intense soccer fans end up being so entranced by the game that they may seem to be “taken over by delirium.” The creation of tifos has spread from Europe to the United States, and Angel City FC’s supporters are the only group to have two tifos from the same season.

Sports teams give joy to their fans, fans provide joy to their teams, and fans inherently bring awareness to those outside the community. This team and league mean so much to so many different people, and the members of AC Pandemonium, Mosaic 1781, Rebellion 99, Relentless Ladies, PodeRosas, and AC Valkyries are the ones working to make women’s soccer known to even more people.

After so much incredible work and perseverance, my thesis film is set to premiere on Thursday, May 9, at 7:00 PM at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. It will be premiering in our school’s theater, the Folino. I would love it if you all could attend and share this information with your family, friends, and fellow women’s soccer supporters. Thank you all in advance for your support!