Munich Match is a drama series inspired by the infamous 1972 Olympics massacre. Creator Michal Aviram, who writes and exec produces the Sky series, said during the series’ pane at Talkdata’s New Tube event that she had a “deep fixation” on the famous photo from the Olympic Village balcony and wanted to create a show inspired by these events.
“I was really fascinated by the story, it was so powerful, people from Israel, Jewish, coming to Germany for a very peaceful sporting event, and you thought this could never happen again… after the war. It was like a knife to the heart and really influenced Israel and Germany in many ways,” she said.
The series comes from Sky Studios, Amusement Park Film and CBS Studios.
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The six-part series is set 50 years after the massacre and Munich is hosting a “friendly” soccer game between an Israeli and a German football club. Tensions and nerves are running high, with the political stakes even higher as the eyes of the world watch on. Everything is being done to make the match a safe and peaceful event. But when things start to fall apart, it seems history might be repeating all over again.
Aviram said that she decided not to make it a period drama set in 1972 because she wanted the “creative freedom” to tell a new story. That story is told from the perspective of a male investigator and a female investigator. “I was trying to dodge the bullet of another detective show with male and female detectives, so their plotlines hopefully take original directions,” she added.
Aviram, who wrote on Israeli drama Fauda, wrote the scripts with Martin Behnke. Daniel Brühl, Amelie von Kienlin, Malte Grunert from Amusement Park Film, Frank Jastfelder and Julia Jaensch from Sky Studios, Meghan Lyvers from CBS Studios, Aviram and Philipp Kadelbach serve as executive producers, while Behnke serves as co-executive producer. ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group will distribute the series outside of German-speaking territories, the UK and Italy.
She added that when she started writing Munich Match, she thought it would be a very different show to Fauda. “As I continued to work, while the theme and the characters are different, something in the tone… after writing three seasons of show, the DNA rubs off on you,” she said.
Check back Monday for the panel video.