September 5 may depict the massacre of Israelis at the 1972 Olympics, but the film is not designed to be a political statement about the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
That’s according to Tim Fehlbaum (The Colony), who directs the buzzy Sean Penn-produced picture, which opens the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra competition on Thursday.
Fehlbaum told a press conference that September 5 was in the late stages of post-production on October 7, when the conflict between Israel and Gaza escalated.
He said the movie sticks to the media narrative of the events during the 1972 Munich terror attack, depicting the sports broadcasting team who became hostage crisis reporters when Palestinian militants infiltrated the Olympic village.
“We don’t want to make a political statement on that,” Fehlbaum said of the Israel-Gaza conflict. “Of course, for us, we did our research and everything that led to that day, but at the end, the movie only shows the media perspective.”
Peter Sarsgaard plays Roone Arledge, the producer of ABC TV’s Wide World of Sport, who decided to stay with the live broadcast for 17 consecutive hours. Fehlbaum praised him as an influential force on modern television.
“He was a visionary storyteller,” Fehlbaum said of Arledge. “He had ideas that are standard in today’s sports coverage, like handheld cameras on [the] field, behind the scenes interviews [with] the athletes… He was the first one to introduce the hero’s journey behind every game.”
Other September 5 cast include John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, and Leonie Benesch. The writers are Moritz Binder and Fehlbaum. Producers are Philipp Trauer, Thomas Wöbke, Fehlbaum, Penn, John Ira Palmer, and John Wildermuth. Executive producers are Martin Moszkowicz and Christoph Müller. Co-producers are Constanze Guttmann, Rüdiger Böss, Christian Reitz, and Geoffrey Mason.
