Atlanta Story Partners nearing release for 1996 Olympics documentary

The 1996 Atlanta Olympics still loom large through the city decades later. Monuments and parks dedicated to the massive sporting events weave through the streets, and vintage merchandise decorates dozens of storefronts. For many, the Atlanta Summer Olympics are a nostalgic hobby. 

For the Atlanta Story Partners, it’s a way of life. Writer George Hirthler and filmmaker Bob Judson started the Georgia-based production company to bring local diverse talent together and tell socially relevant documentaries. 

Their first feature documentary film, “The Games in Black & White,” takes a three-part look at Atlanta’s largest sporting event to date: the prelude to Atlanta’s bid and how it happened, the games and the legacy it left. 

The 1996 Olympics were billed as the “largest peacetime gathering in history,” running from July 19 to August 4 and bringing over 10,000 athletes from 197 National Olympic Committees to Atlanta. Hirthler and Judson want to share the story of how it all happened. 

As a career Olympic bid writer, Hirthler has long been engaged in the industry surrounding the sporting event. In 2016 he wrote “The Idealist,” a historical novel about the father of the Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin. The novel was sold to a film producer, and Hirthler won the rare Pierre de Coubertin medal from the International Olympic Committee, which honors those who contribute to the promotion of Olympism. 

“I called Bob [Judson] because I hadn’t done much in film, but he stayed in the film game and I was writing Olympic bids around the world,” Hirthler said. 

Judson was drawn to Hirthler’s concept, which focused on the Olympic Equal Opportunity Program and Olympic aid, two programs he said people forget among the gold medals and dream teams. He also liked the focus on “black and white” in the documentary, alluding to the partnership between former Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and attorney Billy Payne. 

“These are two stories that really positioned the whole concept of the games in black and white,” Judson said. “Focusing on a white man and Black man coming together to not just bring the Olympics and, you know, the eyes of the world on these athletic endeavors, but tell the story about how these two men came together to initiate a renewed interest in harmony.”

The pair decide to start their own production company and start telling the story of Atlanta’s Olympics. They made it through 17 interviews before COVID-19 hit and shut down production, but they picked up the project again in 2022 “The Games in Black & White” is now set for a release this year potentially in time for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games kicking off in July.

Now the documentary has finished filming, including a two-day shoot at Centennial Olympic Park and dozens of one-on-one interviews in living rooms across the city. The pair now have about 43 interviews from athletes, Atlanta icons and experts to edit down into a finished film.

Hirthler and Judson said the Civil Rights movement was essential to Atlanta earning the Olympic bid, making it a focus of the documentary. Payne, a former University of Georgia football star, first had the idea to bring the Olympics to Atlanta in 1987. He reached out to then-mayor Andrew Young, kicking off a partnership that led the international committee to pick Atlanta as a host. 

“If we hadn’t had the civil rights movement being centered here, there’s probably no way we would have won the right to host the games,” Hirthler said. “The two were in some ways inseparable.” 

Hirthler asked whether or not it was Payne’s intention to bring civil rights history into the campaign, and said once he partnered with Civil Rights Movement icon Andrew Young, “boom, it became part of the message.” 

With a heavy focus on the union between Black and white Atlantans, civil rights activism and “harmony” in the documentary, Judson and Hirthler wanted to create a diverse space behind the scenes. 

A former video journalism professor at Georgia State University, Judson recruited several young filmmakers to work on the production, including Emmy-nominated producer Alahna Lark, who is focused on “improving the lives of people of color through her art.” 

Judson also looked for a heavy musical presence in the film to best represent the city. He brought Grammy-nominated film producer Dallas Austin on as music director and jazz pianist Joe Alterman on to create a theme song. He wanted to incorporate two of the original Black music forms to come out of the United States into the historical film. 

“Atlanta has gotten to become a music capital as well as a film capital,” Hirthler said.

The duo also brought on actor Greg Alan Williams to narrate the documentary, playing a fictionalized version of himself, the “citizen of Atlanta” acting as an on camera host.

With a diverse team in front of and behind the camera Judson and Hirthler kicked off production by finding historical photos and video. They scanned about 800 images at the Atlanta History Center in 2020 and did a “string out” of all the interviews to outline a story. From there, they found archival footage from the history center, news stations and personal archives. 

It took years of work and pandemic-related delays, but Judson is now in the editing stages. He’s put about 40 minutes of the film together so far and the partners are already shopping it out to broadcasters. They aim to have it air on a national broadcaster and streaming service and hope it will resonate with Georgia’s audience. 

“A lot of people said the greatest things that happened to Atlanta were the Civil Rights Movement and the Olympics, and so this is a story that combines the two of them and it should play well here,” Hirthler said.