The Projection Booth Podcast

Mike sits down with Julie Wyman, director of The Tallest Dwarf — a documentary that is as personal as it is political. 

When filmmaker and UC Davis professor Julie Forrest Wyman set out to make The Tallest Dwarf, she discovered she has hypochondroplasia dwarfism herself — and that hers is the last of a body type she has inherited. The film charts her quest to find her place within the little people community at a moment when dwarf identity is poised to radically change, exploring everything from the legacy of exploitation to the thorny ethics of pharmaceutical interventions promising to make little people taller.

Visually striking, humorous, and touching, The Tallest Dwarf invites audiences to rethink identity, disability, and what it means to belong in a world that wants to change who you are.

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Christine La Monte discusses her career and her latest work producing a pair of opera-themed documentaries, the uplifting Viva Verdi! (2025) and the stunning Ai Weiwei's Turandot (2025). La Monte talks about the importance of opera in the modern world and the Oscar-nominated song "Sweet Dreams of Joy."

For more information visit: https://www.lamonteproductions.com/

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Collision as courtship. Self-destruction as intimacy. Fatih Akın’s Head-On (2004) opens with two suicide attempts and spirals into a sham marriage between Cahit (Birol Ünel) and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), German Turks who weaponize matrimony to escape themselves. What begins as a performance of tradition mutates into volatile love, violence, prison, exile, and a reunion that refuses catharsis.

Keith Gordon and Rahne Alexander join Mike to unpack Akın’s fusion of Sirkian melodrama, Fassbinder fatalism, and arabesk despair. Is this a tragic romance, a critique of identity politics, or a brutal study of freedom curdling into nihilism? No easy redemption. No national reconciliation. Just survival.

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Sound designer Mark A. Mangini returns to The Projection Booth to discuss The Oldest Person in the World (2026), the Sam Green documentary about the successive holders of the oldest person title.

Mark discusses the importance of using sound to tell a story and recounts his work on Dune and Mad Max: Fury Road.

 Look for screenings of The Oldest Person in the World at https://www.theoldestperson.com/

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Mike talks with editor Derek Boonstra about his work on Seized (2026). Premiering recently at Sundance Film Festival, the documentary traces the human fallout of asset forfeiture and the legal gray zones that allow property to be taken without conviction.

Find out more about Derek at his website, https://derekboonstra.com/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth