Private Project

Perfect Strangers

Perfect Strangers tells the story of two unique and engaging characters. One is Ellie, who embarks on an unpredictable journey of twists and turns, determined to give away one of her kidneys. Five hundred miles away, Kathy endures nightly dialysis and loses hope of receiving a transplant until Ellie reads her profile on an online website. Both women face unexpected challenges as their parallel stories unfold over the course of four years. Perfect Strangers raises questions about what motivates an individual towards this act of compassion. Why are we unnerved by the idea of such an extreme gift?

  • Jan Krawitz
    Director
  • Jan Krawitz
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 9 minutes
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    HD video
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Atlanta Documentary Film Festival
    Atlanta, Georgia
    Best Documentary Feature
  • San Luis Obispo International Film Festival
    San Luis Obispo, CA
    Audience Award
  • Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
    Missoula, MT
  • Santa Fe Independent Film Festival
    Santa Fe, NM
    Honorable Mention
  • Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival
    Colorado Springs, CO
  • Heartland Film Festival
    Indianapolis, IN
  • Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival
    Sebastopol, CA
    Audience Award
  • American Documentary Film Festival
    Palm Springs, CA
  • ReelHeART Documentary Film Festival
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada
  • Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
    Hot Springs, Arkansas
  • Ethnografilm
    Paris
    France
  • United Nations Association Film Festival
    Palo Alto, CA
  • SF Docfest
    San Francisco, CA
    World Premiere
  • Chagrin Documentary Film Festival
    Chagrin Falls, OH
  • Dallas Video Festival
    Dallas, TX
  • Thin Line Film Festival
    Denton, TX
Distribution Information
  • GoodDocs
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
Director Biography - Jan Krawitz

Jan Krawitz taught in the MFA Program in Documentary Film at Stanford for 34 years. Her films have screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including Sundance, the New York Film Festival, Visions du Réel, Edinburgh, AFI Docs, London, Sydney International Film Festival, Full Frame, and SXSW. Her documentaries explore eclectic topics. Perfect Strangers follows an altruistic kidney donor on an unpredictable, four-year journey of twists and turns. It was shown at a number of film festivals and in two successive years on the PBS series America Reframed. Jan's previous film, Big Enough, poignantly reveals the emotional and physical challenges faced by several dwarfs as they attempt to live in an average-sized world. The participants in Big Enough first appeared in Little People, which Jan co-directed 20 years earlier. Big Enough was broadcast on the national PBS series P.O.V., internationally in eighteen countries, and in the European Parliament. Little People was a national Emmy Award nominee in the category of Outstanding Individual Documentary and was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Jan's short documentaries, Mirror Mirror, In Harm’s Way, and Drive-in Blues have been in educational distribution for many years and received large audiences on national PBS. Her experimental film, Styx, is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. She has had retrospectives of her films at the Portland Art Museum, Hood Museum of Art, Rice Media Center, the Austin Film Society, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In 2007, I met Ellie, who had just embarked on a journey that would culminate in the donation of her kidney to someone she never met. During our initial 4-hour conversation at an outdoor café in the coastal California town where she lives, Ellie was charming, thoughtful, articulate, and irreverent. By the end of that meeting, I felt compelled to make a film that could explore the meaning of altruism through her story. Her decision to donate was not motivated by family history, religion, or mental instability. The implicit question for the viewer is, “Could I do this? If so, for whom? If not, why not?”