"My name is Steven. I am 48 years old and I'm a dwarf." So begins Steven Delano's unusual new documentary, "No Bigger Than a Minute." What follows is neither an academic discourse on the life and times of America's "little people," nor a project in self-affirmation in the face of social discrimination — though the film includes healthy doses of both of these. "No Bigger Than a Minute" has tongue-in-cheek re-enactments, a music score structured after Delano's own mutated DNA sequence, short-statured Hollywood stars such as Peter Dinklage ("The Station Agent") and Meredith Eaton ("Family Law") and musicians, rappers, comedians, novelists, doctors and ordinary folk. Not to mention filmmaker Werner Herzog and an uneasy, and very funny, cameo by Randy Newman, singer-songwriter of the top ten hit, "Short People."

What really stirs this eclectic mix into potent form is Delano's own reluctant "star turn" at the film's center — a film he didn't originally envision appearing in at all. Delano's opening statement is both the culmination of one story, about what he'd learned of dwarfism after 40 years of ignoring it, and the beginning of a new story. It's this new story that thrusts him into his own film to delve into questions of humanity's treatment of difference, tensions between personal and group identities and the future evolution of these contradictions. It's here that Delano faces the most untidy dilemma of all: In the brave new world of genetic engineering, when it is conceivable that dwarfism can be bred out of human populations, is this what we want?

Delano asks us to imagine the weird muddle of sympathy and presumption in people who are moved to pick up and hug a dwarf they don't know. With "little people," as many but not all of them prefer to be called, the dichotomies and contradictions that arise from their obvious differences are much sharper than for average-sized people. And especially in entertainment-crazed America, little people occupy a disproportionate and fantastic place in popular culture, from the carnival sideshow to Hollywood to appearances in German director Werner Herzog's acclaimed films. In "No Bigger Than a Minute," Herzog declares that dwarfs have a "radical human dignity." But dwarf rapper Bushwick Bill has his own take on it: "People tried to protect me; I didn't give a * * * about that....I wanted to be part of the great big world we live in."

Then there is a modern dilemma: When is one being exploited and when is one exploiting oneself? Preconceptions about dwarfs in popular culture and as a minority culture are very much a part of the national psyche, but Delano is the first dwarf to make a film about it from a dwarf's perspective.

"No Bigger Than a Minute" follows the twists in the story of dwarfism today. Scientists have isolated the genetic mutations for the majority of dwarf cases, and, most astoundingly, have developed tests that detect these mutations in the earliest stages of a fetus's development. The question is inescapable: Is dwarfism a chronic handicap to be eliminated? Or is it valuable human diversity?

Much has changed in recent years for little people. The founding of Little People of America, and their annual conventions, which promote social, professional and political relations among dwarfs, have broken down their traditional isolation and heralded the public emergence of this minority group. For all the wonderful support he found in his childhood, Delano can't help but wonder how different his life would have been if he had met other dwarfs earlier — if he had been a little less determined to live as if his four-foot stature didn't matter.