Little White Lie

Lacey Schwartz grew up in a middle class Jewish family in Woodstock, New York. She had a loving home and a strong sense of Jewish identity. The people around her asked openly how a white girl could have skin so dark. The family had an explanation ready: her colour came from her dark skinned Sicilian grandfather. When her parents abruptly separated, Lacey began to doubt that explanation. At eighteen she spoke to her mother and learned 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 documentary was made by Lacey Schwartz herself. The mark left on a child by a lie a family quietly kept up is the real subject. The sixty six minute American documentary was completed in 2014.