Monica Lewinsky was the young intern whose clandestine affair sparked the greatest presidential crisis in decades – and the first presidential impeachment in over a century. In MONICA: IN BLACK AND WHITE she came face to face with a panel of her own peers, and answered their unfiltered, no-holds-barred questions on all aspects of her experience.

In April of 2001, Monica Lewinsky met before HBO’s cameras with students from Princeton, NYU, Columbia, Fordham, the Union Theological Seminary and other top schools at Cooper Union in New York City. She frankly discussed her affair with the president, her desperate attempts to cover it up, her betrayal by Linda Tripp, her brutal apprehension by Kenneth Starr’s investigators, her treatment by the media, by feminists, by Clinton and by those across the American political and religious spectrum.

Her surprising revelations are enhanced by a rich trove of archival footage, and finally tells the whole story of the Lewinsky matter, from the perspective of Lewinsky herself. Made in full cooperation with Ms. Lewinsky, the film examines her ordeal and its unique place in history, leading many to question not only their own views of the scandal, but of the woman formerly, and exhaustingly known as Monica Lewinsky, the “21-year old intern.”

Shot in black and white the film strips its subject down to its core. In contrast, loud, colorful images of the hysteria that followed Monica throughout the scandal are spliced throughout the film, emphasizing the frenzy of distraction that allowed Monica to be one of the most overexposed people of our time yet also one of the least revealed.

The silenced still point of the biggest scandal of the past decade Monica here is revealed as a bright, articulate, young woman. Through her story and the personal telling of it, viewers are given the opportunity to read a different take on a defining chapter in American history.

Credits

Produced and Directed by: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Editor: Jeremy Simmons
1 x 95 minutes