Jan Krawitz

Historia

Jan Krawitz has been independently producing documentary films for 35 years. Her work has been exhibited at film festivals in the United States and abroad, including Sundance, the New York Film Festival, Visions du Réel, Edinburgh, SilverDocs, London, Sydney, Full Frame, South by Southwest and the Flaherty Film Seminar. She has recently completed Perfect Strangers, a documentary that follows one woman as she embarks on an unpredictable, four-year journey of twists and turns, determined to give away one of her kidneys. Krawitz’s previous film, Big Enough, was broadcast on the national PBS series P.O.V. and internationally in eighteen countries. Her documentaries, Mirror Mirror, In Harm’s Way, Little People, and Drive-in Blues were all broadcast on national PBS and her short film Styx is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Little Peoplewas nominated for a national Emmy Award and was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Krawitz has had one-woman retrospectives of her films at venues including the Portland Art Museum, Hood Museum of Art, Rice Media Center, the Austin Film Society, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. In 2011, she was awarded an artist’s residency at Yaddo. Krawitz is a Professor at Stanford University where she teaches in the M.F.A. Program in Documentary Film and Video.

Películas

Perfect Stangers
Director
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. 500 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
Big Enough
Director
Meet Mark and Anu Trombino, Karla and John Lizzo, Len and Lenette Sawisch, and Sharon and Ron Roskamp. They lead typical American lives: they have children, pursue successful middle-class careers, and live in the suburbs. If you did business with any of them over the phone, you would probably have no reason to suspect they are anything but typical. If you were to meet them, however, you'd be surprised to find that they are all dwarfs, with the exception of John Lizzo, the tall, rangy fellow who married Karla.
Faerie Tales
Technical Advisor
A documentary on the group The Radical Faeries.
Mirror Mirror
Director
Mirror Mirror provocatively explores the relationship between a woman’s body image and the quest for an idealized female form. Blending humor and candor, the film incisively illuminates the vagaries in the concept of an “ideal” body type. A tension exists between the visual statement created by masks and mannequins and the rich diversity of the voices appearing in the film. Thirteen women, of varying age, size, and ethnicity, reveal the ambivalence with which they regard their own bodies. Their musings about specific body parts are underscored by archival footage of beauty competitions.
Drive-in Blues
Director
Drive-In Blues celebrates the drive-in and laments its decline. A blank white screen looms behind interviews with old-time theatre owners who reminisce about the heyday of the drive-in and confront the reality of a dying business. Laced with unusual archival trailers, the tone of the film swings between camp and nostalgia.
Little People
Director
Documentary about dwarves and dwarfism.
Styx
Director
A very unusual exploration of the Philadelphia subway and its riders, which creatively utilizes black and white photography.