September 5
The way that breaking news was reported on television changed on September 5 1972 when Black September, a pro-Palestinian terrorist organisation, stormed the Israeli camp of the Olympic Games and took hostages. The Games were intended to announce the return of West Germany on the World Stage, only decades after the end of the war. And the ABC crew who were on the scene, and with equipment to show live film around the world, were sports reporters who now had to cover an event where news-gathering precedents could potentially be created. This is a taut and impeccable thriller about the various people in the studio whose job it was to make this work. Looking back on it now the archive footage, especially at the beginning when the technology is heralded—there’s a shot of the World Trade Center which isn’t necessarily intended to make a point, but does. And the Holocaust and German complicity haunts the film. Young studio manager Marianne ( Leonie Benesch ) fields questions about how much h...