Tim Fehlbaum: « The terrorist attack in Munich is an open German wound »

Tim Fehlbaum was a movie -crazy teenager when he saw Kevin Macdonald’s clinical documentary « A Day in September » at a cinema at home in the hometown of Basel. It would take a move to just Munich, a directing education and two futuristic scifi films before he himself dared to dramatize the German trauma with the Palestinian terrorist group Black September’s attack on Israeli athletes during the September 5 September 1972.

-MacDonald’s film was perhaps not the biggest artistic experience, but it was shaking about me and I couldn’t release it, says the 43-year-old Fehlbaum when we meet in a baking garden at the Venice Film Festival in connection with the world premiere for « September 5 ».

After two dystopian Long films, « Hell » and « Tides », were the young Swiss sucking on another kind of storytelling. His producers pitched the idea of ​​a thriller based on the terrible hostage drama that shook the world.

– Steven Spielberg took up the aftermath in an interesting way with his movie « Munich », but I thought it was exciting to dive straight down in the event, says Fehlbaum.

As an old sports TV nerd, he also thought that there was a media perspective on the shaking event that ended with many dead; Eleven Israelis, a German police and five assaults. Fehlbaum and his script colleague Moritz Binder chose to start entirely from the American sports editorial from ABC Sports that was present in Munich to monitor the Olympics. A group of sports reporters who wrote television history when they quickly had to shift focus and follow the bloody drama in real time instead.

« Making the research was a real delight for me, » says the blonde, boyish Swiss a wide smile. He also told me that it was a kind of perfect storm that led to the finished film.

– We got access to several eyewitnesses who were in place in that smoky editorial room and we could use, and recreate, ABC’s own original broadcasts. Another decisive factor, of course, was also that the German state published documents and police investigations around the attack that had been secretly stamped earlier, says Fehlbaum, who received substantial traction in the project when Sean Penn came on board as an executive producer.

In conjunction With the 50th anniversary of drama Publied the then German President to apologize to the victims’ relatives who also received damages. Fehlbaum believes that the incident is still an open wound in Germany.

– It was such a flagrant failure of then West Germany. Those responsible were so busy marketing a new progressive, liberal country that they chose to compromise security. The terrorists could take taxis straight into the Olympic village where the police were unarmed. They did not want pictures of uniformed men with weapons – and it was the usual street stacks that were submitted to storm the apartment where the hostage was held. There are still many unanswered questions about why things went as badly, says Fehlbaum.

The director says that he was also strongly inspired by Paul Greengrass high-octane « United 93 » who in real time recounts the deadly flight cut that took place in connection 11 September attack in New York 2001.

– I wanted to create the same feeling of an emergency now, to be in the room. Besides, of course, enhancing the excitement, it also deals with a kind of truth requirement. There are so many perspectives on this story, but here we only get to see what the ABC journalists see and do, he says.

– There was so much that happened there that you could also never find, such as when the head office in the United States decides to turn off the satellite in the middle of a decisive, live interview!

One of the trickiest The information with « September 5 » was to recreate the analogue television technology from the early seventies where they filmed at 16 mm and where the development took a good time before you could send out to the TV viewers.

– It was very challenging to find all equipment, especially that we wanted to have things that were authentic and that also worked. But fortunately, there are many collectors who save on things like this. It was rooted in many basements, I can say, haha ​​…

For Tim Fehlbaum, the technical aspect of the film is not just about scenography but also about ethics. Peter Saarsgard’s editorial director and John Magaro’s young producer continuously a discussion about what can be broadcast in relation to the victims and their relatives – at the same time as the course of events that they are going to guard goes at the speed of lightning. He believes that the film’s media-historical aspects got a slightly different angle because the present American ABC journalists were only used to monitoring sports events.

– They had to make quick and difficult decisions that they did not have routines for and I think that gives the story a special nerve, says Fehlbaum and continues:

– Today everyone can be their own reporter. Everyone has a mobile camera in their pocket and can send any pictures to anyone. But even though the technology has changed radically in 50 years, the press ethical aspect is the same. Basically, of course, it is about the eternal question of news rating versus sensationalism.

Read more and movie and TV in DN And more texts By Helena Lindblad