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"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
Filmmaker LaFilmmaker Lacey Schwartz was raised as a white Jewish child and only later learned the whole truth.
"'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
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
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.
"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".
"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
Maybe the most powerful power habit out there - defining who you are, where you came from, and where you're going. Ashley C. Ford (Moderator) - Rebecca Soffer, Lacey Schwartz, Rebecca Odes.
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"
"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
Don't miss Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz on an all new episode of exhale Wednesday, May 20th at 9pm ET/8pm CT. Real topics, real stories, real life! Each week, Angela Burt-Murray, Erin Jackson, Issa Rae, Malinda Williams and Rene Syler host the provocative talk series exhale. Enjoy an hour of honesty and entertainment, where nothing is held back!
"...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, a film-maker who grew up in a white family then discovered that her biological father was black, shares her unique perspective 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.
Lacey Schwartz has a new documentary film out, “Little White Lie,” about her hidden racial identity
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
Imagine you spent your whole life believing one thing about who you were, only to discover that it was not exactly true?
"This potent family drama ignites emotional fireworks." - Martin Tsai / Los Angeles Times
Lacey Schwartz is a 37 year-old attorney who is black and Jewish, but didn't realize she was black until she went to college. She's made her fascinating story into the film "Little White Lie" and sits down with Arise America to discuss her background and movie.
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.
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.
As a child [Lacey Schwartz] believed her family’s explanation — that her appearance was inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather — but when she reaches her adolescence, and her parents abruptly separate, her gut begins to tell her something else.
Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz always had the darkest skin in her nice Jewish family. Her documentary Little White Lie reveals the reason for that.
BIG MORNING BUZZ LIVE HOSTED BY NICK LACHEY: Little White Lie Star + Director Lacey Schwartz Explains How She Uncovered Her True Race
“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
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.
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)
"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
"The success of Little White Lie provokes the deeper conversation. Lacey Schwartz will know how to sustain it with courage and insight that can open up whole new ways of seeing our world".
- Susan Reimer-Torn, The Forward
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
"Schwartz gets behind the camera to interview childhood friends, parents, relatives... What follows is a beautiful, intimate, and complex exploration." - Diana Clarke / LA Weekly
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 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.
"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)
This video is from Brooklyn Independent Media (BK Indie Media)--the first 24/7-television channel created by, for, and about Brooklyn. It is the borough's source for local news, Brooklyn culture, civic affairs, music, arts, and technology. This media channel features programming produced and curated by BRIC, an arts and media nonprofit located in Downtown Brooklyn, NYC.
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
Film director, Lacey Schwartz, discusses her newest documentary, "Little White Lie" and the family secret she reveals in the film.
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
"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
"'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
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 ...
This provocative, emotionally liberating memoir is a thought-provoking springboard for discussions about race, identity, coming-of-age, and social diversity.
— Carol Holzberg
Talking with Lacey Schwartz about her documentary, "Little White Lie"
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
"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
Lincoln presented the Lincoln Motor Company Audience Award to Lacey Schwartz for her docu-film, 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
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
"...Little White Lie is rich and complex, stippled with surprising revelations" - Chris Barsanti
It would take “Little White Lie,” the film an adult Lacey made about family secrets and religious identity, to unpack this mystery.
Lacey Schwartz’s film about reconciling her hidden black paternity to the Ashkenazi Jewish home she was raised in strikes universal themes
In this episode sponsored by Reel Works, guests include filmmaker Lacey Schwartz who discusses her documentary Little White Lie.
After 18 years of living as a white woman, she learned she was biracial. A family secret changed the dynamic of everything. - JENEÉ OSTERHELDT
Schwartz, tells the story of her emergence from what she calls “the racial closet” in the autobiographical documentary Little White Lie.
“Little White Lie” is fascinating so long as it focuses on Schwartz’s history and the thorny issues of racial identity that accompany it
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
The film will resonate with anyone who wants to confront a difficult fact of family life that no one wants to talk about.
Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz stops by The Ackerman Podcast to discuss her film Little White Lie.
"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