How Lufthansa came to Lift-Off
Jack Eckert and his script, Lufthansa, first caught the Lift-Off team's eye after applying for representation at Toronto International Film Festival 2019. After reading Jack's copy and holding a meeting with him to find out more about his intentions for the project and reasons behind starting it, we decided that Lufthansa would be a great project to bring to producers and sales agents. We look forward to taking Jack's project to TIFF and seeing where it ends up!
About the project
The 1970s was a decade scarred by the rise of international terrorism. Cities all over the world, from Munich to London, Tel Aviv to New York became unwilling battlefields in the fight against extremism. On October 13, 1977, four terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked a German commercial airliner, Lufthansa 181, on its way back to Frankfurt from Spain. The West German government, still reeling from its failure at the Munich Olympics and its battle against its own domestic terrorists, delicately plans a daring rescue operation. The mission is to be led by Colonel Ulrich Wegener, a career soldier, and carried out by his brave, yet untested, operators: the GSG-9. As 181 travels and lands all over the Middle East, in both friendly and hostile nations, and as the hours tick by, the Germans and their allies prepare to stand up to terrorism and save innocent lives before it's too late.
The Writer, Jack Eckert
"Originally from New Jersey, I spent most of my childhood all over the East Coast of the United States. I attended boarding school in western-Massachusetts and graduated from Chapman University, Class of 2019, with a degree in screenwriting. Currently, I reside in New York City. My focus is writing Features and Pilots based on real events and real people. I believe the best stories are the real ones about real people struggling to overcome hardship, adversity and conflict and that the medium of film and television is the perfect way for everyone learn about these stories."
