Spielberg believes lessons could be learned from the tragedy

The dramatisation will tell the story of the Israeli agents sent to Munich to assassinate the Palestinian activists holding their countrymen hostage.

Troy star Eric Bana plays the agent in charge of the rescue mission, alongside Geoffrey Rush and Daniel Craig.

The film is scheduled to be released in the US on 23 December.

Filming is taking place in the US, Malta, Hungary and Poland.

'Defining moment'

Munich will mark Spielberg's second film of 2005, following sci-fi blockbuster War of the Worlds which took more than $215m (�122m) at box offices around the world in its first six days.

"The attack at Munich by Black September and the Israeli response to it was a defining moment in the modern history of the Middle East," said Spielberg, earlier this month.

"By experiencing how the implacable resolve of these men to succeed in their mission slowly gave way to troubling doubts about what they were doing, I think we can learn something important about the tragic stand-off we find ourselves in today."

The Munich Olympics killings were also the subject of the 2000 Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September, directed by Kevin Macdonald.