Many Telluride Film Festival attendees have prioritized screenings of high-profile titles that already have distributors in the early days of this year's festival. But on Monday, many of them (us) managed to branch out a bit and pick up lesser-known titles that don't yet have a backer. One such film, whose second screening of the festival just opened at the Werner Herzog Theatre, is called September 5th. (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 were reinforced by tragic real-world events.) And here’s the kicker: It might be the strongest narrative film of the entire festival! It certainly left many festival-goers, industry insiders and civilians alike, feeling absolutely thrilled as they walked out of the venue.
If/when this 94-minute film, the story of ABC Sports' coverage of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attack on Israeli athletes, finds a major distributor, it could seriously compete in a number of Oscar categories. I'm talking about Best Picture (it's hard to find 10 notable nominees this year, but this film, which counts Sean Penn as a producer, it would definitely be one), best director (by Tim Fehlbauma young Swiss director I had never heard of before), best actor (Peter Sarsgaardwho plays the legendary ABC Sports boss Roone Arledgeand rather criminally has never been nominated before), Best Supporting Actor (John Magarowho plays the network's young coordinating producer for coverage of the Olympics, Mason and his team work together.), best original screenplay (Fehlbaum and Moritz Binder) and at least the best scenography.
Distributors have lately been disappointingly avoiding many notable titles that touch on politically sensitive topics such as abortion, Ukraine and Donald Trumpand so some might be hesitant to go anywhere near the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But I'm sure at least one of them will be smart enough to grab this film, in which there is no discussion of who hurt whom, and which also offers a fascinating, emotional and disturbing look at journalists, journalism and journalistic ethics. It will be remembered along with All the President's Men, Shattered glass (in which Sarsgaard had a large initial role), Good night and good luck AND Reflector.