The Loving Generation

Filmmakers: Lacey Schwartz, Mehret Mandefro
Runtime: 4 episodes, 8-13 min each

From the filmmakers behind the award-winning films LITTLE WHITE LIE and DIFRET, comes a new digital documentary series THE LOVING GENERATION: 1965-1985 for First Look Media’s entertainment studio, Topic. LOVING GENERATION is a first-of-its-kind look into the generation of children born to one black parent and one white parent just before — and after — the Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving vs. Virginia decision, which overturned all remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the United States. More specifically, the interviewees are biracial individuals born between 1965 and 1985. These individuals include: Erin Cloud, Susan Lewis, Melissa Harris-Perry, Adam Sewer, Elaine Welteroth, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Panama Jackson, Soledad O’Brien, Nicholas Jones, Jaweer Brown, Gracia Walker, Rebecca Carroll and Octavio Warnock-Graham, and Mat Johnson. The story of the Loving Generation is the story of how these biracial children — many of whom solely identify as Black — experience race within a divided America, and how their visibility (or invisibility), accomplishments and experiences provide a fascinating and unique window into the borderland between “blackness” and “whiteness”, and, in some cases, explode our ideas about race and identity. A unique aspect of this digital series is that it draws heavily on family photos that the participants have given us to use. These personal archives are woven together with larger historical archival material and straight-to-camera studio interviews.

About the Filmmakers

Lacey Schwartz and Mehret Mandefro are co-founders of Truth Aid, a multimedia production company that specializes in fiction and non-fiction stories about telling truths that are hard to talk about. Mehret and Lacey’s work stems from a shared belief that storytelling is the most powerful tool we can use to bridge societal divides in our world. Integral to their work is the development of public engagement campaigns that engage audiences to build on lessons learned in their films from inception to impact. Lacey and Mehret have worked with a variety of companies and organizations, including MTV, BET, Be’chol Lashon, NASCAR and @radical.media on long-form content, TV series and branded content. Lacey directed and she and Mehret produced and co-wrote the critically acclaimed documentary Little White Lie which was the top-rated broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens during the 2014-2015 season. They also produced the narrative film Difret which was the first film to win audience awards at both the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. Mehret has a BA from Harvard University, an MD from Harvard Medical School, and a MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as a Fulbright Scholar. Lacey has a BA from Georgetown University and a JD from Harvard University. She is a member of the New York State bar.