Julie Wyman's "The Tallest Dwarf" Premieres at SXSW
'Standing at five-feet tall with a long torso and shorter limbs, Julie Wyman realized from a young age that her proportions seemed different from her peers. Growing up, she was often teased and repeatedly told that her body wasn’t suited for some of her dreams for the future.
Wyman, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and associate professor of cinema and digital media at UC Davis, had been curious about Little People of America (LPA) and the dwarf community for a long time — and wondered whether there was a place for her there. Her journey is told alongside little people (LP) activists and artists in her latest film, The Tallest Dwarf, which is premiering at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas on March 10.
“I always felt as though I was off to the side looking in, and that sense of being separate was rooted in having a body that was different,” Wyman said. “This feeling also became my reason for being an artist.”
Wyman’s mission as a filmmaker has been to make space for people like her, showing the beauty and power of those whose bodies are different. After 25 years of filmmaking, though, she hadn’t yet made a film about her body type.'