"'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. 

"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

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

"...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] 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.

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?

Lacey Schwartz comments on Rachel Dolezal

"How a Biracial woman grew up believing she was white." - Jenée Desmond-Harris / Vox Media

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.

“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)

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

"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.

“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