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Nice Girls Don't Ask

Nice Girls Don't Ask offers a cautionary tale constructed from “social guidance” films of the 1950s. The film casts a subversive and humorous lens on the rules for female behavior and the renewed favor of “trad wives” in today's political climate.

  • Jan Krawitz
    Director
    Perfect Strangers, Big Enough, In Harm's Way, Mirror Mirror, Little People, Cotton Candy and Elephant Stuff, Styx
  • Jan Krawitz
    Producer
    Perfect Strangers, Big Enough, In Harm's Way, Mirror Mirror, Little People, Cotton Candy and Elephant Stuff, Styx
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    17 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 15, 2025
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    16mm archival footage
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Krakow Film Festival
    Krakow
    Poland
    May 29, 2025
    World Premiere
  • Family Film Project Archive, Memory, Ethnography Internacional Film Fest
    Porto
    Portugal
    October 16, 2025
    Official Selection
  • Sedona International Film Festival
    Sedona, Arizona
    United States
  • AmDocs
    Palm Springs
    United States
    March 27, 2026
  • Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival
    Sebastopol, California
    United States
    April 11, 2026
  • United Nations Association Film Festival
    Palo Alto, California
    United States
    October 20, 2025
    North American Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Through Women's Eyes International Film Festival
    Sarasota, Florida
    United States
    March 6, 2026
  • Ethnografilm
    Paris
    France
    April 4, 2026
  • Visible Evidence
    Philadelphia
    United States
    August 5, 2025
Director Biography - Jan Krawitz

Jan’s documentaries have screened at Sundance, The New York Film Festival, SXSW, AFI Docs, Edinburgh, Visions du Réel, Full Frame, and Ann Arbor, among others. Little People was nominated for a national Emmy Award. She has had artist residencies at Yaddo and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy and was a Fulbright Scholar in Austria in 2022

Six of her films received national broadcasts on PBS. Big Enough was broadcast in two successive years on P.O.V. and internationally in eighteen countries. Little People, was nominated for a national Emmy Award for “Outstanding Individual Documentary.” Other documentaries include Perfect Strangers (America ReFramed), Mirror Mirror (P.O.V.), In Harm’s Way (Independent Lens), Drive-in Blues, and Styx. She is the recipient of artist residencies at Yaddo and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. Jan was a Fulbright Scholar in Austria in 2022 and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. She is Professor Emerita at Stanford University where she taught in the MFA Documentary Program for many years.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In response to the insidious erosion of women's rights in the past several years and the valorization of "trad wives" in the current political climate, I have excavated social guidance films from the 1950s to create a cautionary tale for today. Offering a subversive perspective, “Nice Girls Don’t Ask” explores the uncompromising expectations for women of that era and challenges the viewer to connect the dots between then and now.
My mother was a math major in college and a highly capable woman. A "nice girl” who married in the 1950s, she conformed to societal expectations and became a housewife and mother.
What was the cost of this behavioral straitjacket for a generation of women? I came of age in the 1960s when many more life choices were available. Nice Girls Don't Ask is the third film I have made about women's issues. Mirror Mirror explores female body image and In Harm's Way is a personal essay about violence against women.