START

Cut to Black and Music

Stills will alternate with the interviews

00:24 Teresa
Hi. I’m Teresa Margarida. I’m 38 and I’m 98 cm tall

00:34 David
I’m David Almeida. I’m 39 and I’m 1 metre 37

00:43 Sandra
Hi, I’m Sandra. I was born on the 30th of April 1998 and I’m 1 metre 24.


00:56 Victor
I’m Victor Monteiro, I’m 43 and I’m a Leo. I’m 1 metre 25.

01:07 Alvaro
I’m Alvaro Teixeira. I’m 39 and I’m 1 metre 40.

01:15 Laurinda
I’m Laurinda Mota. I’m 41, and I’m 1 metre 15.

01:24 Victor
The term ‘dwarf’ has really negative implications. I’m not comfortable with it at all.

01:34 Teresa
People shouldn’t be defined or labeled. They’re just people and that’s what’s important.
01:41

01:45 Victor
I find the term ‘dwarf’ really quite insulting. I prefer something like shorty - that’s better.
01:53

01:57 Sandra
I’m 11. I love jogging, playing on my computer, and riding my bike. My dream is to be a model or actress. My favourite film is ‘High School Musical’.
02:12

02:15 David
I’m an Actor. I’m the best actor in Portugal.
02:20

02:28 Victor
A little hero. A big little hero.
02:32

02:34 David
I might see the world from lower down but everything I see is good.

02:52 Laurinda
I’m just the same as other people. I’m equal, just smaller.

03:02 Teresa
People should be judged by their value, not their height.

HIGHS AND LOWS

Music and images of Teresa leaving home

03:28 Teresa
I’ve done a lot of traveling - from here to the Algarve.

03:37 Why do you like to drive?

03:39 Because it’s liberating. I love it. I think it’s the best, fantastic...it gives me an adrenaline rush.

03:50 Teresa
I love the beach! I always spend 3 months in the Algarve. I’ve got a place there. Getting into a swimsuit was one of my complexes, but I still go swimming and sunbathe. If I didn’t, my life would pass me by. We should enjoy life while we can.

04:16 Mother
Thirty years ago they didn’t do scans, so I never knew that she would be born with problems.

04:25 Mother
She was born with arms that looked like legs. And she was very chubby and stumpy.

04:34 Mother
She was also born with a cleft palate. They operated on her when she was 2. They corrected her larynx, which had an opening down its middle. Then it was her feet. They put a metal rod into the curvature of her leg from here to the foot. You can imagine what that was like.

04:56 Teresa
Soon after I was born I started going to the hospital. I noticed how much surgery I was undergoing. But I gradually began to accept it. I hated those huge operations; a child suffers terribly when it has to leave its parents.

05:10 Mother
Over these ten years she had 11 operations. Over and over again. They were always to stretch something, but everything just shrank right back.

05:17 Teresa
I was a happy girl at school. I always played a lot. My friends caught me in their arms when we played jump-rope and they would throw me the ball. I always tried to do what the others could do. Although they were bigger than me I never noticed that I was discriminated against. Of course there were some people who weren’t always nice to me.

05:39 Mother
As she got older she started to get depressed. She would wake up crying. She cried and cried. She wanted a normal life like everyone else - she wanted to start dating. That was a really difficult time.

05:51 Theresa
There were so many questions. Mostly it was why, why me? But my mother and father always made me see that there was nothing I could do about it. I just had to accept it.

Music and shots of her house

She shows the kitchen, the stairs and the bathroom
She speaks into the mirror whilst getting dressed.

06:13 Teresa
They’re double – one big one, and a smaller one.

06:32 Teresa
Here’s the bathroom. We’ve just made two sinks. The smaller one is for me.

Are you proud Teresa?
Yes…Yes and no.

Does your condition cause you pain sometimes?
No, size isn’t important. I might be small but I see the world as if I was tall.

07:04
Do you design your own clothes?
Yes
Where do you get your inspiration?
From things in everyday life. When I first started worked I needed more clothes.
Do you have bathing suits too?
Yes

07:24 Teresa
It’s very difficult to find adult sizes for a little person like me. And the children’s sizes don’t fit me properly. So I started to design my own. With cleavage. I love the neckline.

Fade to Black
Music and images of Victor working

07:49 Victor
I have always been a well-integrated person with friends and girl-friends, with loving people around. I haven’t noticed that being the way I am has caused me any difficulties in that respect.

08:13 Victor
The hardest thing for me is using the ATM. Normally I have to use the lower ones. Shopping is difficult because the shelves are too high. Usually I ask for help from people. But asking someone to use the ATM for you is dangerous. It’s risky.

08:24 Isabel
We’ve known each other for many years. We live in a little place where everyone knows Victor. He’s well known in Mangualde. People admire him because he leads a normal life without prejudice. We have a very deep friendship. One day our relationship entered a new phase.

08:51 Who made the first move?
08:53 Isabel
It was Victor. He was scared because it’s not easy for him to be with someone who’s different from him. As for me, I had to think about it a lot. My friends warned me not to confuse our friendship with compassion or pity, because that’s not love and it can’t lead to anything. I thought about it a lot.

09:31
Did it take a long time?
It took me quite a long time.

09:34 So he suffered?
09:37 Maybe, but so did I, making my mind up.

09:40 Victor
I don’t think it’s important how loudly you say it, it’s the content of what you say. Maybe I’m just making excuses for the fact that I’m shy.

09:51 Isabel
Some people interfered a lot, saying “a girl like you can’t marry a man like Victor - it isn’t normal!”. My family had a big problem with our relationship; with his size. We could have children, like Miguel, and maybe they would be ashamed to walk in the street hand in hand with a dwarf. And it would just snowball from there.

10:17 Did your family come to the wedding?
No. Only my younger brother. And my godmother.


10:26 Victor
Everything that is different to the norm is not well accepted. I suffered a little. My relationship suffered a little.

10:30 Isabel
Although it might turn out well in the end, I still think that people who marry out of pity are wrong to do so. But I’m absolutely certain that what I did wasn’t out of pity, it was for love and it was a conscious decision.

Music and images of Victor playing football with his children.

10:59 Victor
We considered the risks, the possibilities and we were married for a long time without children so were mature enough to know what we wanted. We chose to have our own, biological children.

11:13 Isabel
After twenty weeks we were told that one of the foetuses was growing normally. We had already been warned that that there was a 50 percent chance of one child developing achondroplasia. The obstetrician knew about this and after 20 weeks they noticed that one child had less growth in their longer bones. When he was born and I saw him for the first time I was 99 percent sure that he had achondroplasia.


11:45 Victor
Today, what I want to teach Miguel is a positive attitude to life, to be brave and to have the courage to lead a normal life.

12:05 Isabel
They are just two normal twins for me and most of the people around them. There are days when I have to defend my son against people who look and point. He’s my child just like Ines and I’m not ashamed of my son or of walking hand in hand with Victor. The first time a boy called him a dwarf, Miguel came home in tears saying ‘Mummy, they called me a midget.’ It was the first time he had come across the word dwarf so directly. It hurt him. I knew he was suffering. And I told him: ‘...yes you are much smaller than the others. But you are just like your dad. There are big and small people. You should live your life no matter what size you are.’

Go to black and images of David in the street.

13:11 David
My first memory is of walking down the street, when I was four years old and an old lady said: ‘Look at the dwarf!’ And I replied: ‘Shut up you old Bitch!’ This is the first time I realized that people saw me as a dwarf.

13:31 David
My parents always said: ‘Son, you’re just like the others. You’ve got normal intelligence. You’re not dependent on anyone.’ So I live on my own. But even when I was a child my parents always said to me – ‘you are just like the others. If you can’t reach the shelves use a bench’. So what if I find it hard to use an ATM.

14:05 David
Being an actor was something I always loved. Acting: it’s just that we live in a complicated country and I thought it would be difficult. Now I can’t see myself doing anything other than theatre and cinema. Sometimes I do TV, though I don’t enjoy it that much.

14:45 David
Yes, I’ve done some classics - the theatre will take dwarves. I’m only invited on television to play a fool, a grotesque figure or a clown. I’m currently in a play in which I have the role of a judge and I have done others in which I was a drug baron, and a king. The cinema and theatre allow the imagination scope, whilst television is just a product of the media. I don’t bother with soap operas, where a dwarf is always with a normal woman or a black man is shown as a slave, thief, or a drug dealer. That’s terrible.

15:37 Would you like to be in a soap opera?
15:39 I would do it if I liked the project or if I didn’t have much money. Yes why not? I would like to play a lawyer in a soap opera – the lead. I still have my sex appeal.

15:58 Is it difficult being a dwarf?
Maybe they could make the bar a bit lower for dwarves.
Why make the bar lower?
Because I can’t reach it. And people think I can’t get beautiful women, mostly because I’m a dwarf.

And do you?
Sometimes yes sometimes no.

Most of the time?
Sometimes no, but most of the time I do

Music and Sandra, buying a magazine

17:01 Sandra
The first time I became aware of my size was with my mother. I heard my friends criticizing her, saying ‘Look, your mother’s a dwarf’, and then I noticed that I might be small as well.

17:20 Do you care whether your mother is short or tall?
I do care

17:27 Why?
17:32 Because I don’t like it when people criticize or are cruel towards my mother.

17:41 Sandra
I would like to be a model, an actress, a lawyer…
Why a lawyer?
17:50 To make a lot of money. And a journalist etc...

17:57 Laurinda
I’m very proud. She wants to be a model. She’s grown a lot, even though she’s just a child, and she hopes to reach a normal height, of about 1 metre 55, 60, which is already good.

18:14 Do you think she will get there?
18:19 Yes…yes I think she will and that things will get better for her.

18:26 Sandra
How many operations have you had?
Four. Twice on my tibia, one on the femur and another one on my arm.

18:40 And how many more do you intend to do?
18:43 One more on the femur and one on the other arm, and the spine.

18:55 Do these operations hurt a lot?

19:00 Sandra
Yeah. When I get off the operating table, covered in wire, iron plates and bandages and I can’t get up because I’m under anesthetic. And I always vomit afterwards.

19:24 Does it take you a long time to recover?

19:28 Yes.

Months?
Yes

19:35 And do you still think it’s worth it?

19:36 If you don’t want to be short it is worth it.

19:44 And you’ve never thought of stopping?

19:51 Never.

19:55 How tall would you like to be?

1 metre 75.

Why?

So I can be a model

20:12 Sandra
Do you think you’ll manage to reach 1 metre 75?

The doctor says no. The maximum is 1 metre 60 or 55.

20:21 But you think you can stretch more?

20:24 It’ll be difficult but I’ll try my best.

20:30 Laurinda
I would like for her to be normal so that she doesn’t go through what I went through. It’s hard to be different, really hard.
In terms of friends and everything, it’s really hard. When I went to school I would always try to hide. They all laughed at me. If I asked something in class, or didn’t know something, the other kids would laugh at me. I hated lessons because of that. I was ashamed to ask anything.

21:07 Did you think you were the only one?

21:10 Laurinda
Yes, I thought I was the only one. Because people would stare at me so much I thought I was the only one in the whole world.

21:18 Álvaro
I had premature ageing for hormonal reasons.
How so?
21:35 Well, I was only 5 or 6 and I already had a beard. I had a beard and generally looked like a grown man.

What did you do about the beard?
21:41 I tried to shave it off. By the time my father came home I was totally covered in blood.

21:46 What about your psychological development?
21:49 Yes. When I was 9 or 10 I was already doing the accounts for the café. I would deposit money at the bank and I took over for my father when he went to the North. I had a lot of responsibilities.

22:08 So Alvaro, you didn’t really have a childhood, if you had to deal with things like having a beard…
22:15 True – I became an adult pretty quickly.

Álvaro
22:19 Was it difficult, did you have problems in your adolescence because of your height?
22:33 It was tricky. Sometimes I had moments where I couldn’t stand it and I would explode. I just wanted to be alone, to be left alone in my corner and not have to think about anything around me.
I never had a steady girlfriend. One day I was relaxing at home. My brother saw this programme and told me that there was this great girl – perfect for me. And I had a look – and liked what I saw.

23:01 Laurinda
He gave me his telephone number and said he wanted to see me. I called him. And we said we’d meet by the gates of the popular fair and that was that.

23:12 Álvaro I remember I was late
23:14 Laurinda
We walked through the park to a small field. We talked for half an hour. We agreed to meet again. And then he didn’t call me for a month or more.

23:24 Álvaro
I disappeared because I was still unsure and my life was really up and down. And I knew that my unstable life and Laurinda’s stability wouldn’t really mesh.

24:04 SNACKING DWARVES AND MUSIC

Images – little blog Lusitania.

24:05 Victor
The Little Lusitanian appeared in November 2008.
I am trying to find out how many of us there are, where we are, what kind of people we’re with, what professions, to create a self-help group and ultimately a self help society.

24:24 Do you believe the fact that more than 1000 people with dwarfism in Portugal are stuck at home, going through psychological problems and in need of help to live a normal life?

24:37 Victor I do. I think that’s one of the biggest issues.

24:40 Laurinda
The term dwarf makes me think of snow white and the seven dwarves. But Snow White’s dwarves are different to us. They look different too.

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES – THE FILM

25:03 When you were little did you enjoy the story of Snow White

I didn’t…not really…no.


25:13 David
The only thing I like about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is when they all sing in a row. When they’re going to work. I find it funny.

25:34 David
I like the grumpy one – he’s like me. He’s my type. I have a bad temper.

25:59 Victor
Personally I hate the term ‘dwarf’.

26:08 Alvaro
It’s not always a pejorative term, if it’s used by friends or by people I trust, but if it’s just someone who doesn’t know me and they shout ‘Look, there goes a dwarf’, then yes, I seriously want to hurt them.

26:27 Teresa
A Dwarf? Yes, it’s a term designed for a person with certain characteristics, but I think that most people wouldn’t call other people one-legged, one armed, giants or dwarves. Everyone is different anyway.

26:45 Teresa
I think it would be much better to say little people.

26:49 Laurinda
I would prefer if they called me little lady. Or little person.

26:51 Alvaro
Little people? Yes that’s fine.

26:55 David
We call things by their names. I’m not a little man – there are little men. I am a dwarf.

27:01 David
It’s normal for someone in the street to shout dwarf.

27:05 Teresa
Maybe I am very body-shy, I hide myself. But you don’t see many people with dwarfism in the street.

27:13 David
I have friends who get super depressed because they’re going bald. And I just think to myself, they must be mad.

27:25 Teresa
People are worth more than their height. It’s like the old saying: People are not measured by the size of their feet.

27:35 Álvaro
I think that mental power and psychological strength are important. That’s what men should be judged by.

27:42 Teresa
Size isn’t important. It’s nothing.

21:45 Isabel
Size isn’t important.

27:52 Isabel
The heart is important, the mind, emotions and understanding.

27:57 Teresa
I would like to see people like me happy – which I don’t see a lot in Portugal.

28:02 Victor The term that should really be banned in society is ‘Poor little thing.’, when referring to people like us.

28:09 Teresa
I would like to see a smile on the faces of people with dwarfism.