Please join us for a community event and celebration of the Davis Humanities Institute’s (DHI) relaunch after a multiyear visioning process in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis. Professor of Cinema and Digital Media Julie Forrest Wyman, will present her feature-length documentary “The Tallest Dwarf,” which charts her quest to find her place within the little people (LP) community at a moment when dwarf identity is poised to radically change. This campus premiere of the film will feature a discussion with the filmmaker and a reception following.

>> Reserve a Free Seat via Eventbrite

Venue is accessible, and film is captioned.

The Tallest Dwarf premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) in 2025, and, beginning April 6th, will be broadcast nationally and streamed on the PBS series “Independent Lens.” The film was made possible in part with funding from campus entities including the Davis Humanities Institute, the College of Letters and Science, Office of Public Engagement, and the Academic Senate.

The Davis Humanities Institute is proud to host a screening of the Tallest Dwarf as the inaugural event of its new public programming. The event embodies the DHI’s renewed mission: to support and showcase humanities research and artistic practice in dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, and in service of publicly engaged scholarship. Please join us for an evening of celebration, and to learn what’s next for the DHI!

Schedule

4:00 p.m. – Doors Open

4:30 p.m. – Film (1 hour and 32 minutes) in the Recital Hall

6:00 p.m. (est.) – Q & A following the film with the film’s director Professor Julie Forrest Wyman joined by Mark Povinelli, an actor, lead participant in the film and also the former president of Little People of America, 

Moderator Natalia Duong, assistant professor of Asian American Studies and Science and Technology Studies.

6:20 p.m. (est.) – Reception in the Grace and Grant Noda Lobby with a live music interlude from the Department of Music.

About the Director

Julie Forrest Wyman is a filmmaker, writer, and Associate Professor of Cinema and Digital Media at UC Davis. Her work engages issues of embodiment, body image and the possibilities and problematics of media spectatorship — all informed by her experience of living with hypochondroplasia dwarfism. Her 2012 documentary STRONG! premiered at AFI Silverdocs and was broadcast nationally on PBS’s Emmy Award–winning series Independent Lens, where it won its Audience Award. Wyman’s films—including FatMob (2016), Buoyant (2005), and A Boy Named Sue (2000) — have aired on Showtime, MTV’s LOGO-TV, and have been exhibited on five continents. Her work has received support from Sundance, Sandbox, IDA, SF Film Society, Points North, ITVS, the Creative Capital Foundation, The Princess Grace Foundation, California Humanities, and NEH. She has been a fellow at the UC Davis Feminist Research Institute.

About the Film

The Tallest Dwarf charts filmmaker Julie Wyman’s quest to find her place within the little people (LP) community at a moment when dwarf identity is poised to radically change. Julie explores attitudes about normality and rumors of dwarfism in her own family. When her parents are mystified by her questions, Julie pores through family photos with her father Paul and the two playfully measure themselves following Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man diagram of “perfect” human proportions. The film also highlights LPs who tell their stories of growing up, navigating pregnancy, and finding agency within a medical system that offers hope to some and poses challenges to others.

In search of community and belonging, Julie meets other LPs, each with their own relationship to dwarf identity and medicine. She partners with a group of LP artists in a creative process to confront issues raised by new, controversial pharmaceutical genetic therapies. The cast brings their lived experience to a collaborative workshop that explores the cost of conformity and the experiences of historically being put on display and gawked at in the present-day. Archives offer further context, attending to the echoes of eugenics in modern medicine’s history of “correcting” dwarf and disabled bodies. Through the group’s creative collaboration and the stories of LPs and their families, the film challenges the notion that people should change themselves rather than the structures harming them.

The Film’s Sponsors Include

• The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)
• Ford Foundation JustFilms
• IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund
• Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, with support from Sandbox Films
• The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund
• California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities
• UC Davis College and Letters and Science
• Baryshnikov Arts Center Residency, awarded through the Princess Grace Foundation-USA
• SFFILM Rainin Grant to Filmmakers with Disabilities
• Berkeley Film Foundation
• Sundance Institute Artist Accelerator Program | One House Filmmakers Fund, supported by Gold House
• UC Davis Office of Public Engagement
• UC Davis Academic Senate

About the Davis Humanities Institute

Jenny Kaminer, Director and Professor of Russian
Catherine Chiabaut, Associate Director

Mission. The Davis Humanities Institute fosters research and collaborations within and beyond the humanities and arts, empowering scholars, students, and communities to engage with the most pressing global challenges. We promote vital dialogue and partnerships that explore the cultures and societies of our home in the Central Valley, as well as our regional and international connections.

Vision. 

• To support critical and pioneering research grounded in humanistic methodologies and artistic practices;
• To cultivate an ethos that prizes cooperation and engagement across fields, borders, and disciplines;
• To incubate innovative research and curricular directions;
• To promote local, regional, and global community partnerships that support the university’s mission of publicly engaged scholarship;
• To celebrate the humanities and arts through high-visibility events and activities.