Atlanta Story Partners (ASP) today announced that its feature documentary “The Games in Black & White” will have its world premiere as a Special Presentation of the 49th Annual Atlanta Film Festival. 

Centered around the enduring friendship of Ambassador Andrew Young and 1996 Olympic CEO William Porter “Billy” Payne—a relationship characterized as the most successful Black and White partnership in the American south in the civil rights era—the film presents the first comprehensive story of the Atlanta Olympic Games—from the bid to the legacy and the transformation of the city that followed. 

“The Games in Black & White” will debut at Rialto Center for the Arts on April 26. Ticket availability and pricing through the Atlanta Film Festival website will be announced in the weeks ahead. 

“Given the state of race relations today, it is increasingly important to tell empowering stories of Blacks and Whites working together to achieve shared goals, and ‘The Games in Black & White’ does just that,” said George Hirthler, co-founder and writer/producer at Atlanta Story Partners. “We framed the story of the Games against the backdrop of Atlanta’s vibrant civil rights history. Beyond the highlight reel of extraordinary athletic feats, this film illustrates how two men—one Black, one White—embodied the promise of the civil rights movement and helped fulfil the destiny of ‘the city too busy to hate.’”

Atlanta Film Society Executive Director Christopher Escobar said “The Games in Black & White” was a natural for AFF. 

“The Atlanta Film Festival is about bringing the latest and greatest stories in independent film from around the world to Atlanta and about sharing Atlanta’s stories with the world – ‘The Games in Black & White’ is such a perfect example of doing that and diving into one of the most significant chapters in Atlanta’s recent history, celebrating the Atlantans who made it possible,” said Escobar. “We’re excited, not only to premiere this film, but also to present it within walking distance of where all this history took place, at an incredible, historic Atlanta venue, Rialto Center for the Arts.”

Co-produced by award-winning filmmaker and Atlanta Story Partners co-founder Bob Judson, “The Games in Black & White” features a cast of Centennial Olympic all-star organizers as well as interviews with gold medalists Dan O’Brien, Janet Evans and Johann Olav Koss. Atlanta Story Partners captured interviews across Atlanta as well as Los Angeles, Oslo and Paris to share additional, previously uncelebrated legacies of the 1996 Olympics presented in the film. 

Grammy-winning producer Dallas Austin served as music director and produced the film’s theme song, “The City Too Busy To Hate,” which will be released in advance of the premiere. The film also features an original score by local jazz musician Joe Alterman. Atlanta-based actor Greg Alan Williams narrates the film on camera and off. Additional producers include Alahna Lark, Rohan Backfisch and Bill Chapman, who also was creative director. 

“Drawing authentic Atlanta talent and voices to ‘The Games in Black & White’ was a goal of ours from the beginning of the film project,” said Judson. Production on  “The Games in Black & White,” started in 2020 but paused during the pandemic. Filming resumed from 2022 to 2024, with rights clearances for an array of Olympic-related footage underway in recent months. 

Along with Payne and Young, the Atlanta Story Partners team completed interviews with over 40 people associated with the 1996 Games or the Olympic Movement, including former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, Martin Luther King III and former First Lady of Atlanta Valerie Jackson, among others. The team also interviewed U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland as well as LA28 Board Chair Casey Wasserman, five-time Olympic medalist and LA28 Chief Athlete Officer Janet Evans, and LA28 Chief of Games Management Doug Arnot, who was also managing director of venues and operations at the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. 

During September 2023, the team interviewed 1996 Olympic decathlon champion Dan O’Brien and completed a two-day on-location shoot involving more than 30 crew members capturing narration and other footage across Centennial Olympic Park. 

Previously, the Atlanta Story Partners team also travelled to Europe, securing interviews with five-time Norwegian Olympic medalist Johann Olav Koss, who emerged from the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics as the leader of Olympic Aid, an international humanitarian outreach that became one of Ambassador Young’s passions in the lead up to Atlanta 1996. The team also interviewed veteran Eurosport journalist and producer Christian Seychal, who covered the Centennial Olympic Games over the course of six years. 

Rialto Center for the Arts has a storied history with Atlanta Olympic films, with “The Games in Black & White” as its third and second five-ringed documentary premiere. Once the city’s largest movie house, the venue hosted the summer 1997 world premiere of the Bud Greenspan documentary “Atlanta’s Olympic Glory” highlighting many of the Olympian feats of the Games. In December 2009, the Rialto hosted the Southeast premiere of Clint Eastwood’s feature film “Richard Jewell” filmed at and about Centennial Olympic Park and the unlikely hero who prevented greater loss during an attack during the 1996 Games. 

The film was produced with the assistance of the Georgia Film Office, a division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development.