Goldberg takes on Short subject

Montreal - Documentary filmmaker Howard Goldberg's latest film is personal. At 5'3", Goldberg stands at a below-average height. And that, he says, led him into his investigation of attitudes towards the short for Short & Male, an hour-long doc that will air on CTV in the fall.

"A lot of people dismiss the height issue," says Goldberg. "But it can be a very profound thing for some men. It has everything to do with who you are, and at the same time nothing to do with who you are."

While some have dismissed the feelings of shorter men as simply "short men's complex," Goldberg delved into research on the topic and was taken aback at what he found. "Economists have been examining this question for some time. And they have found that taller people tend to earn more money."

In January, Goldberg went to China, where height discrimination is written into the laws. If you are under 5'3", for example, you can't get a driver's licence in China. And there are height requirements for various professions, including lawyers, judges and positions in the foreign ministry.

Goldberg also found that the Chinese are the leaders in surgical procedures to increase a person's height. This surgery takes months and is extremely painful, requiring the shins to be broken and then re-broken just as they are healing. "People are going to extremes to gain some height, though this procedure is extremely expensive."

He says the documentary did come from his own personal experience. "There was a housepainter in my home a few years ago, and he was also short. We began talking about the experience of being a shorter man and what that was like. He told me that he'd never really discussed this before. But there was a lot to say. It struck me that being short had had a big impact. In high school, you were really made to feel badly, very much the way women are made to feel if they're overweight."

The hour-long Short & Male will air on CTV in the fall, but Goldberg also hopes to have a longer version ready to screen at Hot Docs this spring. Budgeted at $860,000, it is produced by Ina Fichman (Black Coffee) of Montreal's Instinct Films, with the support of SODEC and Rogers. Shot entirely in HD, the doc will feature interviews from across Canada, the U.S., France and China.