Stars John Magaro and Leonie Benesch had no way of anticipating that their new film “September 5,” depicting how ABC handled coverage of the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, would be premiering at the Venice and Telluride film festivals so shortly after this year’s games in Paris, or at a time where all eyes are on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Going into production directly from last year’s Berlin Film Festival, where their respective films “Past Lives” and “The Teachers’ Lounge” both screened, the pair did not even know “September 5” would be coming off of a turning point in their careers, as both those films would go on to receive Oscar nominations. “It’s just coincidence,” said Magaro over Zoom. “It could have [premiered] in the winter and it would’ve been totally different.”
Directed by Swiss filmmaker Tim Fehlbaum, who wrote the script with Munich native Moritz Binder, “September 5” sees Magaro play Geoffrey Mason, the young producer managing Olympics coverage from the ABC newsroom in Germany on the day Palestinian militant organization Black September captured nine and murdered two members of the Israeli Olympic team (the nine others were later murdered as well). Benesch plays Marianne Gebhardt, a German interpreter key in helping provide real-time updates to the ever-shifting narrative on the hostage crisis.
Even without the context in which the film is now screening, there was already a heightened sensitivity around making sure to focus on the role of the media in the situation, and how the live broadcast 52 years ago, seen by an estimated one billion people at the time, forever changed broadcast news coverage. “We approached it as journalists,” said Magaro. “This isn’t about who’s right, who’s wrong? It’s not pro any side. It is as journalism should be.”
One of the big questions the cast and Fehlbaum were asking was, “‘How much do you sacrifice your own humanity, or moral code, or even ethics at times, to tell it as objectively as possible?’ And that’s our approach to it,” said the actor. “We looked at it as, even though we were sportscasters or sports producers, still our job was to tell the story and to tell it honestly and objectively.”
The newsroom thriller also emphasizes what the stakes were for host country Germany only a generation from the end of WWII. Discussing the decisions behind creating her character Marianne for the film, Benesch said, “First, you need a woman in there somewhere, but also there had to be a representative of Germany at the time.” To be a person speaking for an entire country would be all too daunting to play, so the actress leaned into research on what the essence of a translator’s job is, and what Marianne’s background would be. Speaking to an older woman who still works as a translator in Berlin, Benesch was told, “Back then it would’ve not even been a proper job job yet because there weren’t that many people around who did it and there was no need for it,” she said. “It was usually women who did this, but they would be from quite posh backgrounds.”
But those conversations about the profession of a translator were the most Benesch would do about getting a sense of what it would have been like to be in that newsroom, even though the production had access to people who could provide firsthand accounts. She said, “We still had the last remnants of COVID rules applying when we were filming, so it wasn’t like we had lots of opportunities to all get together. But Tim and I really liked the idea of me being thrown into that room full of men and having to navigate because that’s basically what happens to the character.”
Meanwhile Magaro, who also stars opposite Peter Sarsgaard as renowned TV executive Roone Arledge, and Ben Chaplin as production legend Marvin Bader, actually did get in touch with the real life person he would be playing. “The first conversations with Geoff Mason were him being very worried, and justifiably so,” said the actor. “Obviously it’s very sensitive. What he and that team went through is still very fresh for him.” Plus the film takes a tiny bit of creative liberties, but its docudrama-like approach, even incorporating real life news clips from the day’s broadcast, sold the real Mason on the filmmakers’ vision.
“As he saw that I was trying to make it as authentic as possible, he started to breathe a little bit easier. Then we just kept in contact. Even as we were shooting it and he was watching the dailies, he would call and write and was very encouraging. Let me know we were on the right track, that it felt very authentic to what he went through,” said Magaro. “Sometimes having a real person isn’t as valuable, but this time it was extremely, extremely valuable for me and it really gave me a map to go off of.”
The actor also shadowed the CBS NFL broadcast team led by CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus, the son of broadcaster Jim McKay who anchored the live coverage of the hostage situation the film depicts. Seeing the directors and producers still hard at work even when an international emergency is not afoot like this made for a unique experience watching the Paris Olympics. “Obviously this time, watching it after going through what we did, you just see the production of it all, how the show is put together, how it’s broadcast to the world, you see it very differently,” said Magaro.
Especially thinking about the implications from the Munich Olympics being the first games to feature live coverage. “This is the first time you’re using satellites, you’re broadcasting globally. You’re working with a team with people from all over the world,” said the actor. “This was really exciting. It wasn’t until everything went to shit with the terrorist attack that they had to really step back and think much more critically.”
Germany had instantly taken a blow, as many government officials had been hoping the games would help improve the global perception of the country after the Holocaust — only for Jewish athletes to be murdered in Munich. Navigating through an oscillating sense of national pride or shame was another element to Marianne for which Benesch drew upon real life experience to convey. “I don’t know what it would’ve been like in the ’70s and ’80s. I do know that for me, when I moved to London in 2013 to go to drama school, I was very aware of being German. I was very aware that all my peers had grandparents who were on the other side,” she said. “It’s like two generations back, and I put a lot of effort into losing my German accent in drama school. Then I remember the dynamic, or the way Germany was perceived, shifted during 2015 when [Chancellor] Angela Merkel let in all the refugees, and there was all of that big conversation. That was the first time I felt like, ‘Oh, being German is weirdly something that people are now proud of or jealous of,’ and I’d never experienced that before.” However, she added “I find the whole idea around everything else to do with patriotism really off-putting personally.”
“September 5” is similarly frank in its conversations around these topics, even showing the newsroom debate that led to using the word “terrorists,” and the fallout from relying on the German police as a source. Once the tragedy fully plays out, it is again Marianne’s job to share how the event would affect her country. Speaking to Magaro, Benesch said, “You, Tim and I discussed the scene a lot towards the end where they wanted it. It was in the script. It was to make a little comment towards that, to basically say what had happened, and how Germany had failed again, and we struggled a lot trying to find the right words. We did get there.”
In response, Magaro said, “We had actually shot a version of it previously, and then we came back to it. There just wasn’t something right about it. It’s obviously sensitive material and it’s still sensitive even all these years later. I mean, they’re still dealing with similar problems presently, so finding the language and finding the way to tell it where it wasn’t preaching or overly sentimental or sensitive, where it was just honest and real was tricky. But a testament to Leonie, really, her instincts guided it, and Tim was a collaborator and brave enough to kind of trust her and our take on it.” Though he still holds the “September 5” script in high regard, shooting the climactic moment with Benesch was an example of how, “in the actual playing of the scene, you realize it doesn’t need as much language,” said the actor. “A testament to the collaboration was that we discovered that and shot it that way.”
Even though “September 5” itself is a work of entertainment rather than a news piece, Benesch said it is still asking the question “When does reporting on something that is worth reporting on turn into exploiting something for an entertainment reason?” The work that the sports team on ABC did that day in 1972 unwittingly opened Pandora’s Box in a way, making the film a cautionary tale.
“It has zero to do with politics. If anything, it’s commenting on the media. I think why it’s a story that needs to be told is because this has become something that we’ve become, especially in America, so desensitized to,” said Magaro. “Every day, there’s a school shooting, or a mass murder, or a bombing, or a protest that goes horribly wrong, or an innocent person is killed. The sensationalism is something that has just become commonplace. Whereas, our story visits the first global communal experience of terror, of a news story… It has the same question that we should be asking ourselves, which is, ‘Who is it serving that we are now showing these images?’”
“September 5” premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.