During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, a militant Palestinian organization called Black September infiltrated the Olympic Village and took eleven Israeli athletes as hostages. Meanwhile, a hundred yards away, the ABC Sports team was prepping for their coverage of the day's games. Then they heard gunshots. It wasn't the sports broadcasters' job to report on crime, but their journalistic instincts kicked in anyway. The ABC Sports team pointed their cameras toward the unfolding tragedy and reported the news.
The events of that roughly 22-hour period in September 1972 are dramatized in director Tim Fehlbaum's upcoming film, titled September 5. The Swedish filmmaker retells the story through the eyes of the ABC Sports team as they scramble to follow the tragedy. The thriller shows how the broadcasters -- who only prepared to cover boxing and volleyball matches that day -- wrote the rules of capturing a terrorist attack live on air.
"This was a day in media history," Fehlbaum told me ahead of the trailer's exclusive debut (streaming above) in Esquire. "We thought it would be interesting to take a step back, look at the first time a crisis like this was on live television, and reflect on how we consume media today." The director -- who previously helmed the science fiction film, The Colony (2021) -- found the story of the ABC Sports team after studying filmmaking at the University of Television and Film in Munich in the 2000s. "We were researching in all directions, and early on we were lucky enough to find an eyewitness in Geoffrey Mason," he added.
Mason, who led ABC Sports' live broadcast in 1972, is played in the film by John Magaro (Past Lives). The actor is exceptionally gripping in September 5, portraying the journalist as the central figure who asks his team what the news can -- or even should -- broadcast to audiences worldwide. More people tuned into his ABC Sports broadcast than they did to watch Neil Armstrong land on the moon. Even today, their coverage is a reminder of just how difficult it is to maintain ethical standards when tragedy strikes.
"September 5 is a film about journalism, but it's also about the complexity of reporting in a crisis situation." Fehlbaum explained. "It was very important for us to be as accurate as possible and convey to the audience the moral and ethical questions you're confronted with when reporting on something like this."
Following its premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, September 5 is generating significant Oscars buzz. Deadline wrote that Fehlbaum "succeeds on every level," while The Hollywood Reporter dubbed the film as, "Riveting and relevant." Critics also compared the film to Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005), The Post (2017), and the like-minded HBO drama The Newsroom.
"It's a big honor," Fehlbaum said of September 5's place in the conversation for a Best Picture nod at the upcoming Academy Awards. "It's pretty overwhelming because we never expected that before Venice. I'm still in the process of fully realizing what is happening. But I'm honored by how far the movie has come."
September 5 is more of a white-knuckled journalism thriller than a deep look into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- especially considering that events in the Middle East fiercely escalated after the film was completed. September 5's focus rests solely on the Herculean efforts of the 1972 ABC Sports team as they seek to solve how a news station should even cover a terrorist attack. As one of the broadcasters asks in the film's trailer, "If they shoot someone on live television, whose story is that? Is it ours or is it theirs?"