Little White Lie

“A searing portrait of collective denial.”—New York Times

One of the most engrossing and surprising personal documentaries in recent years, Little White Lie tells director Lacey Schwartz’s story of growing up in a white Jewish household with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity—despite the open questions from those around her about her dark skin. She believed her family’s explanation that her looks were inherited from her dark-skinned Sicilian grandfather. But, at the age of 18, when her parents abruptly divorce, she finally confronts her mother and learns the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but a black man with whom her mother had an affair. Following the latter’s funeral, she begins a quest to reconcile the hidden pieces of her life and heal her relationship with the only father she ever knew. (65 mins., DCP)

Copresented with the Columbus Jewish Film Festival, Leventhal Visiting Artists Fund, Columbus Jewish Foundation, Ohio State Film Studies Program, and OSU Hillel.