Little White Lie (2014)

Little White Lie (2014)

The secrets of a New York family

7.0

Movie

United States of America
English
Documentary, Drama
2014
FEMALE DIRECTOR, LACEY SCHWARTZ DELGADO
Joshua Corwin, Lacey Schwartz Delgado, Mehret Mandefro
66 min

What it's about

Lacey Schwartz grew up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, NY, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity - despite the open questions from those around her about how a white girl could have such dark skin. She believes her family's explanation that her looks were inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather. But when her parents abruptly split, her gut starts to tell her something different. At age of 18, she finally confronts her mother and learns the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but a black man named Rodney with whom her mother had had an affair.

The take

This documentary is about filmmaker Lacey Schwartz, who stands out from her devout New York Jewish family with her darker skin tone. For most of her life, the family attributed this to genes from a distant Sicilian ancestor.

But suspicions have always been there, what a family member calls “the 500-pound elephant in the room”. Schwartz embarks on a journey of untangling family secrets, self-discovery, with fascinating questions on race and identity. If you like family history documentaries like Stories We Tell, you will love this.

Comments

This was such a great film touched the heart I have such a similar story my mother and her sister were two of five children they were the two youngest and their mother had an affair with a black man in the 40s. Unfortunately, my grandfather was a professional boxer, and beat him to death….🥲🥲💔 I never got to meet either of my grandfathers but my aunt you could tell was definitely half black half white my mother was always a question mark? Until later on in life then you could really tell that she was half so that makes me a quarter and people had said that to me growing up. I was saying that I don’t know but my mom was adopted and when we found out the true story when I was 12 years old, I just thought it was the greatest story ever like how could that happen and how could that be me?? Well, my children love it and I’m Sicilian and Irish and a quarter African-American so my children have an eighth of African-American in them and if you didn’t know the story you would never think it you just think they were dark skinned Italian beautiful daughters but I see it, they see it they know it, they love it and I didn’t tell them until they were 16 and 17 and 19 years old and they were like Dad, why didn’t you tell us sooner and I just didn’t know the right time to bring it up, and to tell them that their maternal great grandfather was also put away for what would’ve been 15 years in prison for beating his worker( they’re real great grandfather) to death over this and then my grandfather beat another man to death in prison, and died of a heart attack a half hour later, so I guess he got what was coming to him. And my beautiful daughters and I don’t want to live our life thinking about that horrific ending of that generation . We have a very interesting story to tell but Lacey told it best and it’s just amazing to see that I kinda went through the same thing in my life from 12 on and I am 52 years old now. I think everyone should watch this documentary it’s brilliant, and the way it’s put together is so great and she realizes that the father that raised her is her dad and her father and have everything to do with her.❤️👍🏽🙏🏼 being an actor for 30 years, I’ve had many Casting Directors say to me, are you black or are you white or are you a mix? I answer with a very brief synopsis of the story and there John nearly hits the floor. They should know better than this documentary has been out if they’re any good at their job, they should be watching all those films.. 😂😂 but what I’m trying to say, is you never know where you come from and ever know the circumstances you just roll with the punches and make the best of it and I think that has made me much more mature, and who I am today and so accepting of everybody any race shape form makes no difference to me. We’re all just people living on this earth for a blink. Just a short moment in time we need to enjoy it while we’re here.. i’m nearing my retirement as a police officer and like I said, I’ve also been working actor in movies and TV for 30 years as guest stars and supporting roles so I’m just gonna leave this name anonymous. But please, if you have a chance, sit down and watch this film I just think she did such a brilliant job with it and deserves all the accolades for getting her story out. God bless, J. 🙏🏼🙏🏼❤️❤️👍🏽

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