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Winner of the Gaia Prize for Environmental Filmmaking at the 2022 Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival
Winner of Best Feature Film at the 3rd Annual Social and Economic Justice Film Festival
Hiding in the Walls (2022)
Feature Length Documentary - 57 minutes
Millions of people in America today are living with lead poisoning or complications from chronic lead exposure. Lead-based products – especially paint – are commonplace in houses built before the 1970s, and prolonged exposure can have detrimental effects on health, brain development, and cognitive functioning. A child with lead poisoning is more likely than their peers to struggle academically, experience behavioral issues, and even have interactions with the criminal justice system. Yet despite its known risks, the use of lead-based paint in American homes persisted for more than 50 years after it was banned by the League of Nations in 1922.
In cities like Baltimore, Maryland, where the history of lead paint coincides with a history of racially discriminatory housing policies, the ongoing epidemic of lead poisoning has had a lopsided effect on black communities and neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. The growing awareness of lead’s developmental impacts created a harmful stigma for lead poisoning survivors, and a destructive financial industry has emerged to prey on lead lawsuits and settlements.
Hiding in the Walls offers a look at the unseen danger of lead poisoning in America, re-contextualizing the issue as not merely a symptom but a root cause of many cyclical issues that communities face. It unwinds the fraught history of lead in low-income housing, explains how lead poisoning became an acceptable norm in urban America, and follows the adult survivors who are on a mission to reclaim the narrative.
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“Projects like this film, which expose the vast tentacles of environmental racism...are necessary viewing to propel public consciousness.”
“A thought-provoking examination of a health/societal issue many may have incorrectly assumed was no longer a problem…But even more impressive are the testimonies of the individuals affected by exposure to lead in their childhoods. They collectively demonstrate the adverse effects of this exposure on the course of their lives while defying the stereotype in many cases. This film is highly recommended for general adult audiences.”
“It was powerful and electric whenever people who had been impacted...were on screen. It humanized the subject and lifted up the voices of [those] who had lived with toxic lead exposure.”
“An eye-opening documentary that shows how rampant discrimination has led to oppression of one class...An interesting watch for those studying social justice and America’s history.”
