September 5 (15)

Journalists take centre stage in Tim Fehlbaum’s tense thriller focusing on 1972’s infamous terrorist massacre through a TV crew lens.

When the first gunshots ring out announcing Black September’s attack on the Israeli athletic team at the start, the news team, smoking cigarettes outside their off-village base, don’t initially register what’s going on. It also signals the start of Fehlbaum’s choice to keep the ensuing horror at arm’s length. The situation is reinvented as a kind of media procedural, shown purely from the viewpoint of ABC TV’s sports division, who found themselves in sole charge of broadcasting the events live to the world.

It makes for a tense, lean love letter to TV reporting reminiscent of Aaron Sorkin. Graphics are applied by hand, cameras are smuggled beyond police borders by disguised press, and real archive footage is used of anchor Jim McKay for the actors to interact with to help turn the small space into an immersive experience.

September 5 does not burden itself with the history; it simply transcribes the voyeurism of live TV journalism concerned just to get the pictures and to wrap them up with a neat ending