Nice Girls Don't Ask Films

In the 1950s, thousands of "social guidance" films were produced to shape female behavior. "Nice Girls Don't Ask" reworks this footage to cast a subversive lens on the prevailing rules. The film has disturbing resonance in the current political climate in which the role of "trad wife" has been embraced by men in power and by young women on social media.

Jan Krawitz

Jan’s documentary films have screened at numerous festivals in the U.S. and abroad including Sundance, The New York Film Festival, SXSW, AFI Docs, Edinburgh, Visions du Réel, Docupolis, and Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival. Her films explore eclectic topics such as drive-in movie theaters, altruistic kidney donation, dwarfism, and women and body image. Perfect Strangers, Big Enough, Mirror Mirror, Little People, In Harm’s Way, and Drive-in Blues were shown on national public television and Little People was nominated for a national Emmy Award. Jan has had artist residencies at Yaddo, The Bogliasco Center, and Docs in Progress. She is Professor Emerita in the Stanford Documentary MFA program and was a Fulbright Scholar in Austria in 2022.