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"The documentary Little White Lie would be provocative simply for what it says about race and identity...The film is a searing portrait of collective denial - a diagnosis from which Ms. Schwartz doesn't exempt herself." - Ben Kenigsberg / The New York Times
!["Little White Lie is a true story and unique in that Schwartz's belief in her whiteness was affirmed by her entire community despite her visibly mixed appearance... [The film] focuses on the nature of family secrets and how the white …](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53bde086e4b02d83f6c76934/1417148526459-TTCLCNUL24M9VAG9KDU7/r-VANITY-FAIR-large448.jpg)
"Little White Lie is a true story and unique in that Schwartz's belief in her whiteness was affirmed by her entire community despite her visibly mixed appearance... [The film] focuses on the nature of family secrets and how the white lie on which hers is predicated remained intact for so long." - Chase Quinn / Vanity Fair
"One of the most profound meditations on race I've ever actually experienced. It's great" - Chris Hayes / MSNBC
Could you imagine living your entire life not knowing your true ethnic background? Movie director Lacey Schwartz can. Watch her talk about her new film Little White Lie. - Hot 97
"'A lot of personal documentaries cover secrets,' said Jay Rosenblatt, program director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. 'Self-indulgence is a big problem with personal documentaries, but I think the secret in ‘Little White Lie’ kept it from going in that direction — the narrative thrust keeps you engaged.'" - Felicia R. Lee / The New York Times
The film has the slightly (not distasteful) amateur flavor of many confessional documentaries -- a tone similar to that of "This American Life," the influential radio center of the My Strange Story movement.
Filmmaker LaFilmmaker Lacey Schwartz was raised as a white Jewish child and only later learned the whole truth.cey Schwartz was raised as a white Jewish child and only later learned the whole truth
What unfolds throughout this deeply personal documentary is not only a search for identity and a sort of belated coming-of-age, but an ever dynamic relationship between a girl and her mother and father.
"Holmes' criterion for festival submissions is great black films, against the grain. Certainly that describes Brooklyn filmmaker Lacey Schwartz's 'Little White Lie', a personal documentary about family secrets and the power of truth-telling."
- A.D Amorosi / The Inquirer
On Tuesday, Dolezal broke her silence, saying she has identified as black since a young age. We host a roundtable discussion with four guests, including Lacey Schwartz, producer/director of the documentary film "Little White Lie".
!["...what emerges [from the film] is a thoughtful look at the impact of denial and the nuanced ways in which we shape our identity." - Lauren Duca](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53bde086e4b02d83f6c76934/1438882675769-E403B8U8CBUBPPSCSKYO/image-asset.png)
"...what emerges [from the film] is a thoughtful look at the impact of denial and the nuanced ways in which we shape our identity." - Lauren Duca
Lacey Schwartz comments on Rachel Dolezal
![[Lacey Schwartz] set out to find the truth and along the way uncovered a painful family secret. Her interview begins at 34:34.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53bde086e4b02d83f6c76934/1438222807762-2M9T88YX911IWIBMJSCA/image-asset.png)
[Lacey Schwartz] set out to find the truth and along the way uncovered a painful family secret. Her interview begins at 34:34.
EDITORS PICKS - A curated showcase of short films selected by the Atlantic.
Imagine you spent your whole life believing one thing about who you were, only to discover that it was not exactly true?
"How a Biracial woman grew up believing she was white." - Jenée Desmond-Harris / Vox Media
A woman who grows up in a white Jewish family and assumes that her parents are her biological parents. But when she is 18, at Georgetown, she asks the question and gets a surprising answer. - Mick LaSalle
"This potent family drama ignites emotional fireworks." - Martin Tsai / Los Angeles Times
The revelation not only shook her relationship with her mother to the core, but also led Schwartz to question everything she had believed about who she was, and eventually inspired her to make a documentary about the experience, called Little White Lie.
Schwartz spoke with The Frame host John Horn about her decision to pursue her story via film, how she came to understand her ethnicity and what she plans on teaching her kids about race and identity.
This past Monday night's broadcast of Lacey Schwartz and James Adolphus' documentary "Little White Lie," reached the highest rating in 10 years for an Independent Lens broadcast on WNET, according to the New York station.
"The journey has Schwartz embracing the truth about her real identity and what it means for her as a woman who now identifies as being black, when she once identified as white." - Michele Norris / NPR
Over 30 years later, Schwartz, the filmmaker and principal subject of the documentary Little White Lie, recounts her first memory of feeling different.
Karen Gabay and Mr V speak to filmmaker Lacey Schwartz talks about family secrets in her film, Little White Lie.
Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz always had the darkest skin in her nice Jewish family. Her documentary Little White Lie reveals the reason for that.
POV (@povdocs)
3/20/15, 6:00 PM
.@IndependentLens looks at 9 films on family secrets before the 3/23 broadcast of @laceyschwartz's #LittleWhiteLie
Viewers are in awe of the honesty, determination and clarity with which Schwartz navigates what she calls “my dual identities.” - Susan Reimer-Torn
Schwartz hopes the film will inspire others to confront secrets and denials in their own families. She created a website at stories.littlewhiteliethefilm.com for anyone to anonymously share family secrets. - J. Silverman
BIG MORNING BUZZ LIVE HOSTED BY NICK LACHEY: Little White Lie Star + Director Lacey Schwartz Explains How She Uncovered Her True Race
Schwartz, with her co-director, James Adolphus, turns what really should have been a non-mystery and non-secret into a kind of domestic thriller, at the center of which is the human capacity for self-delusion
“Little White Lie” operates both on the level of personal portrait, utilizing endless film footage of Schwartz and her family in their everyday life, and at Bat Mitzahs, and also as an examination of whiteness and its supposed invisibility...but Schwartz, with her tan skin and tight curls, isn’t afforded this privilege even if she believed she was white. - Nijla Mumin
The Brian Lehrer Show
Lacey Schwartz wins the documentary section prize for her documentary work-in-progress, 'Outside The Box' at the TAA Awards during the 5th Annual Tribeca Film Festival. (Mat Szwajkos/Getty)
Although this film-making duo breaks the rules of this list a bit, they helped craft two remarkable movies this year that stand out as examples of how the journalistic eye can be brought to bear on diverse forms of visual storytelling. - Sarah Stillman
"While Schwartz the filmmaker has embraced her black identity, it has not been at the expense of the strong Jewish cultural identity she developed during her formative years." - Rebecca Spence / JTA
A woman who grew up believing that she was a white Jewish girl with two Caucasian parents has created a powerful documentary which details her discovery that her biological father is actually a black man with whom her mother had a brief affair. - Erica Tempesta
"Schwartz gets behind the camera to interview childhood friends, parents, relatives... What follows is a beautiful, intimate, and complex exploration." - Diana Clarke / LA Weekly
"Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz explores how race, culture and family shape a person’s sense of identity in this documentary and personal detective story." - Anita Katz / The Examiner
For the first 18 years of her life Lacey Schwartz knew she was white. With her dark skin, curly hair and full lips, she was a nice Jewish girl from Woodstock, New York. And then — she wasn’t.
The result is a film about family secrets, about Jewish and African-American identity, and about race in an increasingly diverse America.
“Little White Lie” follows Lacey’s efforts to unravel the truth and talk with her relatives about the family secret, as well as to cast aside her false previous identity and to embrace a new one as a person who is both biracial and Jewish. - Naomi Pfefferman
It's a smart and tightly-edited documentary drawn with narration, home videos, and interviews.
When Lacey Schwartz was accepted at Georgetown University, it was a dream come true. It also blew the lid off a tightly-guarded secret.
In the documentary Little White Lie, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz spins a compelling story about embracing her racial identity.
After some family discord, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz returns to Upstate New York with serious questions about her racial identity on the documentary
Lacey Schwartz was raised in a white, upper middle class, Jewish household in upstate New York. After going off to college she uncovered a closely guarded family secret — she was biracial. Lacey chronicles the revelation and her own search for identity in the documentary Little White Lie.
"In this narrative, Schwartz shapes the story of her quintessential “all Jewish middle-class family” from Woodstock, NY, who for years harbored the secret that Schwartz was conceived through an affair between her mother and Rodney Parker, ... from Brooklyn." - Charing Ball / The Grio (MSNBC)
Lacey Schwartz ’03 will return to Cambridge this weekend to speak about her new documentary “Little White Lie,” showing Saturday Nov. 15 and 17 as part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival.
The journey has Schwartz embracing the truth about her real identity and what it means for her as a woman who now identifies as being black, when she once identified as white.
Lacey is the director and subject of Little White Lie, a riveting, powerful, emotional documentary that traces her upbringing as an only child in a white, Jewish family in upstate New York.
Schwartz tells the riveting true story of how she grew up believing that she was white, despite her physical appearance that suggested the truth
"Moviegoers who aren’t Jewish—a majority of the population, I’m told—and are interested in good films should be advised that the SFJFF and New York Jewish Film Festival (in January) are the prime destinations for many films at the beginning of their U.S. festival and exhibition lives." - Michael Fox / Eat Drink Films
"The aptly-titled Little White Lie clocks in at just over an hour, but it packs in a miniseries' worth of emotional complexity and honesty. Schwartz will be on hand at the film's San Francisco and Berkeley screenings — the Q&As are sure to be lively." - Cheryl Eddy / the San Francisco Bay Guardian online
Lacey Schwartz grew up in an upper middle-class Jewish family, in upstate New York, where almost everyone she knew was white. She assumed that she was, as well. Carolyn Weaver
"Can you imagine not knowing you were black until you became an adult? That’s exactly what happened to Lacey Schwartz, a documentary filmmaker whose newest project 'Little White Lie' is set to premiere this weekend." - Bossip.com
"A deeply personal film..." - Aurora Herrera / the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival Blog
Lacey Schwartz has written, produced and directed a documentary, Little White Lie, detailing how she grew up as a white, Jewish girl in Woodstock, New York, only to learn in college that her biological father was black and a friend of her family.
"The real power, though, comes from the film’s nuanced engagement with the most difficult of American discussions about race, family, and identity." - Diana Clarke / The Village Voice
"In this deeply personal and riveting exploration of bi-racial identity, Schwartz asks: What makes us who we are?" - Kimberly C. Roberts / The Philadelphia Tribune
"'Little White Lie', which receives its world premiere here, is a candid look at race, family secrets and a Jewish woman's determined journey to discover who she really is. I was hooked throughout." - Randy Myers / San Hose Mercury News
Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz chronicles her discovery of her biracial heritage, despite being raised to believe she was white and descended from a "long line of New York Jews."
In this clip from episode 36 of THE SALON, Jewish women discuss "Fifty Shades of Grey." Featuring acclaimed documentary filmmaker Lacey Schwartz, director of "Little White Lie."
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Schwartz‘s seemed like any other Jewish family in Woodstock, N.Y.., except for one thing: mom and dad were obviously white, and their daughter Lacey was obviously not.
"Could you delve into the personal accounts of people you’ve known your whole life? This is exactly what documentary filmmaker, Lacey Schwartz, had to do in order to produce her documentary, Little White Lie." - Rhon Flatts / Columbia Visuals
"Congratulations to Lacey Schwartz for winning the 2014 Saatchi & Saatchi “Nothing is Impossible” Producer’s Award for her film, Little White Lie!" - Hudson Houston
"Although the issues of parental relationships and racial identity in Schwartz’s story are very specific, the dynamics of family communications, relationships, and love approach the universal." - Don Schwartz / From the Heart Productions
Everybody here is flawed, is human. Everybody’s family. The movie is a valuable addition to the (sadly) ongoing discussions our nation is having about race and racism. - Steve Murray
An Independent Lens documentary in which filmmaker Lacey Schwartz shares her journey growing up in a Jewish household believing, as her parents told her, that her dark complexion came from a dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather.
Little White Lie is the story of Lacey’s quest for answers and the unraveling of a family secret that rocks her sense of identity to the core
"How a black and Jewish woman spent the first half of her life believing she was white" - Veronica Wells / Madame Noire
The Schwartz‘s seemed like any other Jewish family in Woodstock, N.Y.., except for one thing: mom and dad were obviously white, and their daughter Lacey was obviously not.
Schwartz, who is Jewish, believed herself to be the daughter of her parents until she discovered that her real father is an African-American man with whom her mother had an affair.
Schwartz recently produced “Little White Lie,” a documentary film about her discovery that her biological father was black, a fact that her parents hid from her for decades. Mainstream Judaism in the United States, she says, needs to think about how to become more inclusive.
Lacey Schwartz didn’t set out to be a filmmaker, but a story too personal to ignore dropped in her lap. Little White Lie is her documentary film about her family history, secrets, and ultimately her decision to face—and tell—the truth. - Jenny Levison
Raised with noticeably dark skin within a white, Jewish family, Schwartz uncovers a family secret that leads her on a personal quest to examine the big issues of race, identity, and belonging ...
Her own questions about her racial identity lay dormant until finally, when applying to college, she was contacted by the Georgetown Black Student’s Association, corroborating years of suppressed uncertainty about her dark skin. Confronting her mother at age 19, she learned that she was the product of an extramarital affair, and biracial. She documents her journey of self-discovery in Little White Lie.
"A Riveting, powerful, emotional documentary" - The 51%
Schwartz has chronicled the discovery of her actual biracial heritage in the documentary Little White Lie
" The world premiere of Lacey Schwartz’s first-person documentary 'Little White Lie', closes the festival with an utterly unique angle on the topic." - Michael Fox / KQED Arts
The secret revealed in the life of Lacey Schwartz, born in 1987 to a white Jewish family in rural upstate New York, where she grew up, is that her biological father was black.
Schwartz, along with co-writing and directing “Little White Lie,” served as executive producer on “Difret".
"Lacey Schwartz's documentary explains how she grew up thinking she was white" - Amanda Bernocco / HNGN
Killer Movie Reviews
"How a black and Jewish woman spent the first half of her life believing she was white"
Listen to Lacey's interview with Mid Morning Mojo host Stephanie Renee
"Captivating, entertaining, enlightening, and though-provoking." - Sergio Carmona
"Little White Lie looks to be full of revelatory moments." - Shardae Jobson / Chicago Defender
I really want the film to be a tool for conversation and to get people talking about their own stories with friends and also with families. - Lacey Schwartz
“I just think it would be great if we could have a better dialogue between the Jewish community and the black community here in town.” - says Leib Dodell
"Harvard Law graduate-cum-documentary filmmaker Lacey Schwartz reveals her personal struggles with race identity in Little White Lie." - Teabreakfast.com
Lacey Schwartz’s coming to grips with family secrets debuted at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival last year.
Lincoln presented the Lincoln Motor Company Audience Award to Lacey Schwartz for her docu-film, Little White Lie
It would take “Little White Lie,” the film an adult Lacey made about family secrets and religious identity, to unpack this mystery.
Schwartz, tells the story of her emergence from what she calls “the racial closet” in the autobiographical documentary Little White Lie.
Indeed, it transcended the film’s specific focus and evoked in this viewer thoughts and feelings about my own upbringing. - Don Schwartz
Lacey Schwartz’s film about reconciling her hidden black paternity to the Ashkenazi Jewish home she was raised in strikes universal themes
“Little White Lie” is fascinating so long as it focuses on Schwartz’s history and the thorny issues of racial identity that accompany it
I really want the film to be a tool for conversation and to get people talking about their own stories with friends and also with families. - Lacey Schwartz
Director Lacey Schwartz recently spoke to the Banner about her story.
Schwartz decided to continued her journey to self –discovery by carrying out her documentary “Little White Lie.”
The film, a New York Times’ ‘Critic’s Pick,” was partially shot locally and explores the life of the filmmaker, Lacey Schwartz
After 18 years of living as a white woman, she learned she was biracial. A family secret changed the dynamic of everything. - JENEÉ OSTERHELDT
"...Little White Lie is rich and complex, stippled with surprising revelations" - Chris Barsanti
This documentary tells a poignant tale of internal integration.
The film will resonate with anyone who wants to confront a difficult fact of family life that no one wants to talk about.