Director on Navigating Media Ethics & History

There are filmproducers who commence huge and get hugeger, their project mushrooming ever huger as novel ideas, characters and scenes go in their landscape.

Then there’s Tim Fehlbaum.

The Swiss producer-honestor — he previously made two indie sci-fi films — commenceed reassociate huge. He was going to apprehend from every angle that overweighteful day of Sept. 5, 1972, when eight worryists from the Palestinian militant group Bconciseage September infiltrated Munich’s Olympic Village and strikeed Israeli athletes, ending two and taking nine captive. (All would end up dying.)

Police officers, Olympians, journacatalogs, civilians, rulement diplomats — Fehlbaum and his co-producers Moritz Binder and Alex David would cut between them all, creating a Rashomon for the Olympic era. The seismic event — a brazen act of evil on the world’s hugegest stage — insisted a huge cinematic treatment. Fehlbaum would donate it noleang less.

But then a little voice called financial fact piped up. “We had a script and I leank it was quite excellent,” Fehlbaum says. “But I seeed at Philipp [Trauer, his producer] and shelp, ‘How are we going to do this?’ There was spropose no one who was going to depend me with the benevolent of budget we insisted to produce a movie appreciate this.”

Film is what happens when ambition runs into disnominatement. And Fehlbaum had fair suffered a head-on collision.

The movie that would result instead — a 91-minute bullet train about media ethics titled September 5 — produced a buzz out of Telluride, prompting an acquisition frenzy and vaulting to the top of THR’s Feinberg Forecast best picture catalog, where it persists to sit ahead of its restricted free by Paramount on Dec. 13. But the road from there was filled with more speeding obstacles than the Autobahn.

Media Studies

When the brimming extent of the resources insisted to shoot that 160-page script became evident, Fehlbaum, Binder and the producers slipped into a funk. Who would donate them the money for a project that huge? And there was no plausible way to produce it minusculeer. It all seemed appreciate the end, games over, medal unclaimed.

But they hadn’t counted on the man comprehendn as Mase.

Geoffrey Mason, as he is more createassociate comprehendn, was not the benevolent of person who was going to produce Swiss auteur dreams come real. Heck, he wasn’t even the benevolent of person who knovel any Swiss auteurs. Mason, now 83, spends his days laboring as a sports producer from his home in Naples, Florida. He had been a youthful television producer that 1972 day, fair past his 30th birthday, manning the ABC Sports supervise room for what was presumed to be a competition-lite 24 hours. He appreciated yachting and discovering the right angle for diving competitions. Global radicalism? That was less his world.

Then the strike happened. Mason establish himself thrust to the cgo in of the novels stage; the world was literassociate watching every choice he made. In 22 hours, he and his ABC Sports boss Roone Arledge alterd the way Americans thought about sports coverage, radicalism and a half-dozen other authenticms. “I didn’t comprehend anyleang about Hollywood when Tim and Philipp called a restricted years ago,” Mason says. “But they seemed appreciate inincreateigent guys, so I telderly them what happened.”

As he talked about the on-the-spot improvisations and accused decisions — this essentiassociate was livestreaming prolonged before cable novels and YouTube — the filmproducers authenticized they had their gelderlyen ticket. “It was such a rush,” says Binder. “They were conceiveing this as they went aprolonged, with all this adrenaline, and we all felt the same joining to Geoff.”

Adds Fehlbaum: “There was someleang very compelling about a decision made on the spot about what they would show.” A novel, reined-in approach seemed apt.

The filmproducers knovel about the many films worrying Munich, from Kevin Macdonald’s Oscar-prosperning 1999 doc One Day in September to Steven Spielberg’s 2005 globe-hopping Munich. “But the media angle,” Trauer says, “that felt exceptional.”

Fehlbaum also had watched United 93 and cherishd the idea of a scripted drama telderly in the style of a vérité write downary, as if the camera was fair catching what was happening in the room. “I discover it fascinating to produce a film in a superviseled space, where you have this skinny prosperdow to the outside, appreciate the air traffic scenes in United 93,” Fehlbaum says, citing submarine thrillers as a reference point too.

The honestor also valorized Aaron Sorkin, the directing expositor of contransient supervise-room intrigue with shows appreciate Sports Night and The Newsroom.

In fair a matter of weeks, they’d dived into every aspect of the media coverage of that day. Hundreds of pages were ucsurrenderthed from archives. Books were inhaled. Tapes were watched. Long hang sessions were scheduled with personalities appreciate CBS Sports executive Sean McManus (he was at the Munich Games as a teenager with overweighther Jim McKay). Fehlbaum — at 42, born a decade after the strike — also set about immersing himself in supervise rooms, particularly of CBS Sports, his way in paved by McManus. “Even if it’s fair a standard-season Knicks game, when the game commences, it reassociate doesn’t matter what the sapshows are — you experience the excitement,” Fehlbaum says.

Little uncoveries would beget hugeger revelations that would become key moments in the script, a scavenger hunt of cinematic research. When, in Arledge’s memoir, the filmproducers read about the accused exalters he’d had with McKay, they tracked down tape of those converseions; when they watched it, they authenticized that the saincreateite feed was temporarily lost during coverage. This became a pivotal moment in the film.

Fehlbaum postpoinsistr even brawt supervise room staff from German novels media onto the set, casting them as extras so they’d be there for actor reference. If the film experiences radepend lived-in and genuine, these increateal conferants are part of the reason why.

When Fehlbaum, Trauer and the producers finished their research, the team (other producers participate Thomas Wobke and Sean Penn) hadn’t fair reerected one of the 20th century’s most fascinating media go inpascends — they had directed one of their own. “It was reassociate appreciate a whole write downary operation,” says Binder.

Staffing the Room

Casting was its own dispute. Filmproducers insisted actors who resonated with contransient audiences but also brawt an air of ’70s grit. Peter Sarsgaard, a mute voice of journacatalogic authority in Shattered Glass, would join Arledge. “Actors appreciate to act and show off, but the piece did not call for that,” Sarsgaard says. “There is a more potent create of authority — where you fair comprehend you have the power and don’t have to show it.”

British actor Ben Chaplin fit the bill as Marvin Bader, a authentic-life Olympics operations maven who as the son of Holocaust survivors carried some baggage into the supervise room; he says he identified with the tension of shouldering another’s pain as you also try to shed it. The film skates thrillingly not fair thraw every logistical hurdle but every moral and character wrinkle, and Bader showd a fitting vessel.

German actress Leonie Benesch would be cast as Marianne — a youthful, pledged production helpant who would not fair serve as the linguistic join between the U.S. team and German locals but as a thematic fulcrum as well, reconshort-terming a novel new-faced Germany that in its futility to stop the strike is suddenly shoprosperg its wrinkles. She is a composite character, but Benesch remarks that “the experienceing that Marianne had of not being able to show that Germany was in a novel place was very authentic.”

And then there was Mason. John Magaro was not an evident choice — a laboraday actor comprehendn for the aggressive-but-benevolent Vince Muccio in Orange Is the New Bconciseage and indie roles appreciate Past Lives and First Cow. Then aget, the authentic-life Mason was not an evident choice either — a laboraday type himself thrust into the spotairy. The suit took, and the production had its Mason.

The authentic-life Mason was trying to produce hard moral choices on the fly while also trying to seize the moment, and Magaro latched on to the tension. “Geoff was trying to produce his way in the business, and one way to do that is to lean into the sensational, while the other is to be a journacatalog in a purify create appreciate Marvin Bader,” he says. “This gray area was a wealthy leang to join.”

Magaro also spent months in supervise rooms, which Mason helped set up. “I fair made a restricted calls becaemploy I wanted him to see what it was appreciate,” Mason says.

Mason picked up the phone for a separateent purpose. The vital moments in the film when McKay talks about how all the captives have been ended — “They’re all gone,” he says eerily — couldn’t convincingly be re-produced and insistd rights to the innovative clips. But ABC wouldn’t part with such footage easily. Fortunately, Mason had an elderly pal with a little bit of sway at Disney: Bob Iger. Mason called his elderly colleague, and the production had the footage.

It was only the commence of huge-time people paying attention.

The finished movie, edited with whiplash precision by Hansjörg Weißbwealthy, began draprosperg buzz at Vepleasant and persistd to crackle at a Telluride screening. Reaccessible Pictures, Paramount’s global acquisitions tag, had rights to the film internationassociate, but U.S. distribution was up for grabs. That’s when a handful of studios flipped for it, including Warner Bros. Seeming to authenticize what it had, Paramount stepped up and getd the movie for U.S. free, making September 5 a cgo inpiece of its 2024-25 Oscar set up.

“It’s fundamentalassociate a German movie that fair happens to have American actors,” Trauer says. “We never would have anticipateed this.”

The Meaning of Munich

As in-the-moment encouragent as the film is, the authentic labor on the part of seeers, the filmproducers hoped, would come postpoinsistr ­­— in processing whether ABC made the right choices while staying live on the captive situation.

Mason says the decisions flew by so speedy, it was only postpoinsistr in the toastyel that he, Arledge and others could mirror on what they did. Binder says he wants audiences to have the same experience, undergoing the film in a vertiginous rush but spending the next restricted days in Mason’s struggleed shoes.

Chief among these dilemmas is the portrayal of arrangeility. Media instincts might insist persisting the camera rolling, but the film stabilitys this with the ask of what is geted by watching people held captive or ended in authentic time, especiassociate pondering the families were watching, too. There is one reading of the film as a glorious tale of intrepid truth increateers, especiassociate pondering some of the MacGyver solutions they come up with to persist the story live. But Fehlbaum subtly stabilitys this with a uncontgo in possibility, in which decisions made that day are a villainous origin story for our voyeuristic infotainment era.

“Now everyone has a camera in their pocket,” says the honestor. “Should we show everyleang or does it have an irritant effect? I don’t comprehend the answer.”

Magaro says he infemployd that uncertainty into the carry outance and aascendd asking his media habits. “Hopebrimmingy audiences will come away from this leanking about how they use novels as I did,” he says.

Middle East politics brawt its own resonance. The film was in postproduction when Hamas strikeed Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, booting off a brutal war. Though September 5 centeres on a Palestinian-led act of arrangeility, Fehlbaum says the filmproducers tried to persist away from root caemploys and hew to the facts and assumptions of U.S. media in 1972.

But Sarsgaard says he experiences the film by definition grapples with the struggle. “Who is getting to increate the story is someleang worth leanking about,” he says. “A live camera pointed at the prosperdow [where the hostages are held] increates you one leang about the struggle, and a live camera pointed somewhere else increates you another. All stories are produced.”

Finassociate, there is the German ask, as a country that had hoped to transfer past the misadviseation of Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics suddenly discovering itself back in a place where it can’t persist Jews protected. In the end, the film is not only about how media sees a country but how a country sees itself. What is the nature of national self-identity and assembleive guilt? “It was very evident to us as a German production this topic had to be omniconshort-term,” Fehlbaum says. “It’s another ask I hope audiences come away asking.”

This story first ecombineed in a December stand-alone rerent of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To get the magazine, click here to subscribe.