Many Telluride Film Festival attendees prioritized, in the first days of this year’s fest, screenings of high-profile titles that already have distributors. But by Monday, more of them — us — were able to branch out a little bit and catch up on lesser-known titles that don’t yet have a backer. One such film, the fest’s second screening of which just let out at the Werner Herzog Theatre, is called September 5. (It had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last Thursday and its North American premiere here last Saturday, shortly after which its relevance and timeliness was reinforced by tragic real-world events.) And here’s the kicker: it might be the strongest narrative film of the entire fest! It certainly left many festivalgoers — industry insiders and civilians — absolutely buzzing as they left the venue.
If/when this 94-minute flick — the story of ABC Sports’ coverage of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attack on Israeli athletes — lands a top-tier distributor, it could seriously contend in numerous Oscar categories. I’m talking about best picture (it’s hard to find 10 worthy nominees this year, but this film, which counts Sean Penn as a producer, would certainly be one), best director (Tim Fehlbaum, a young Swiss filmmaker who I had never heard of before), best actor (Peter Sarsgaard, who plays the legendary ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge, and has rather criminally never been nominated before), best supporting actor (John Magaro, who plays the network’s young coordinating producer for Olympics coverage, Geoff Mason), best original screenplay (Fehlbaum and Moritz Binder) and best production design, at least.
Distributors have, of late, disappointingly avoided many worthy sales titles that touch on politically-sensitive topics like abortion, Ukraine and Donald Trump, and so some may be hesitant to go anyhwere near the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But I am confident that at least one of them is going to be smart enough to nab this film, in which there is no argument about who wronged who — and in which one is also offered a fascinating, thrilling, haunting look at journalists, journalism and journalistic ethics. It will be remembered alongside All the President’s Men, Shattered Glass (in which Sarsgaard had a great early role), Good Night, and Good Luck and Spotlight.
