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If the film has a "message", it's that we and the society we have constructed for ourselves – with oppressive and institutionalised violence, rules and regulations – are monstrous, not the dwarfs.

Even Dwarfs Started Small will screen from an archival 35mm film print.

The inmates of an unnamed island institution rebel against the guards and administration that have oppressed them. However, the complete freedom offered by their revolt only reveals the extremes of the grotesqueries and banalities of which they are capable without restriction.

Herzog's controversial second feature film Even Dwarfs Started Small has the surreal qualities of a frenzied nightmare. The film is largely plotless, instead it revels in the blackly comic anarchic mood conjured by the activities of the film's entirely dwarf cast. After escaping their captors, their actions range from light vandalism to violence and cruelty. Yet nihilism is not Herzog's aim, simply an understanding of the depravity that lies within the hearts of mankind when no longer constrained by any societal bounds.