“The film alternates between triumph and tragedy, but there’s never a moment that doesn’t feel intimate and authentic.” — Kimber Myers, Los Angeles Times
“The experiences and challenges of the rural poor might make it into the national conversation as an abstraction, but rarely with the specificity of this intimate portrait of a black community.” — Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
“Byrne is the furthest thing from a manipulative filmmaker. But Raising Bertie is moving nonetheless.” — Peter Hartlaub, The San Francisco Chronicle
“Byrne, who followed her subjects over a six-year period, powerfully drives home what is obvious and yet what most of us fail to see: Bertie County is America.” — Miriam Di Nunzio, Chicago Sun-Times
“Byrne captures, with exquisite attentiveness, the hard work of being your own role model.” — Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice
“Raising Bertie is a moving chronicle, and a potent treatise on institutional failings that knows to demonstrate said problems instead of merely preaching them.” — Daniel Schindel, Paste Magazine