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.
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Jan KrawitzDirectorPerfect Strangers, Big Enough, In Harm's Way, Mirror Mirror, Little People, Cotton Candy and Elephant Stuff, Styx
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Jan KrawitzProducerPerfect Strangers, Big Enough, In Harm's Way, Mirror Mirror, Little People, Cotton Candy and Elephant Stuff, Styx
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Project Type:Documentary, Short
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Runtime:17 minutes
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Completion Date:May 15, 2025
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Country of Origin:United States
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:16mm archival footage
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Black & White and Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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Digital Cinema Package:Unavailable
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Krakow Film FestivalKrakow
Poland
May 29, 2025
World Premiere -
Family Film Project Archive, Memory, Ethnography Internacional Film FestPorto
Portugal
October 16, 2025
Official Selection -
Sedona International Film FestivalSedona, Arizona
United States -
AmDocsPalm Springs
United States
March 27, 2026 -
Sebastopol Documentary Film FestivalSebastopol, California
United States
April 11, 2026 -
United Nations Association Film FestivalPalo Alto, California
United States
October 20, 2025
North American Premiere
Official Selection -
Through Women's Eyes International Film FestivalSarasota, Florida
United States
March 6, 2026 -
EthnografilmParis
France
April 4, 2026 -
Visible EvidencePhiladelphia
United States
August 5, 2025
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.
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.