Ask Joan, follows the life and work of Joan Price, an 80-year-old sex-positive author and sex advice columnist, who is on a mission to help all seniors – but especially older women – fight society’s ageism to grab all the pleasure they can.
SYNOPSIS
Joan’s own unapologetic sexuality, her energy, humor, and flat-out refusal to accept society’s limiting of her options represent a radical stand against gendered ageism. Joan explores senior sex through her writing, workshops, and her sex advice column, Ask Joan, on Senior Planet, which is part of AARP. Joan’s motto is always, “Try it, or you’ll never know.” Whether it’s someone curious about BDSM or a woman wanting to be with a woman after years of marriage to a man. We follow Joan’s life from being a “wild child” in the 1970’s to realizing she had become invisible at fifty to finding a great love, losing him, and then, after years of grief, meeting her current partner at 73. Observational scenes cultivate a deep sense of intimacy. Animation also plays an important role in storytelling. From Joan discovering the joy of older sex to a religious widow, 74, inspired by Joan’s books, to face her feelings of foolishness and go into a sex shop to buy a vibrator, these animated sequences foster empathy and connection to a subject often ridiculed or considered taboo. Joan’s work also aligns with the sex positive movement, which highlights that our sex negative culture excludes more people than it includes. By connecting how seniors, people with disabilities, those who don't follow traditional sexual norms and the trans community are all left out of mainstream notions of sexuality, the film offers a new way for younger audiences to view older sexuality and new possibilities for intergenerational allies.
Director Statement
In 2004, I directed a film about women over 65 and sexuality. I made it because my mother and her friends were so vital and yes sexual, and I wasn't seeing that on the screen. Over twenty years later, at 64 an older woman myself, I find that authentic stories about older women's zest for life and sexuality are still far too rare. So, when I met Joan Price, her energy, vitality and flat out refusal to accept society's limitations of her own or any other woman's options was a story I felt compelled to tell.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Deirdre Fishel
Deirdre Fishel is a social issue filmmaker whose work focuses on lives that have remained largely invisible. Her films have premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW and Sundance, been funded by ITVS, the MacArthur and Ford Foundations and been broadcast in 35 countries worldwide. Deirdre is currently in post-production on Ask Joan. Her last documentary, Facing the Wind (2024), about two women whose lives are irrevocably changed by their husbands’ diagnosis with dementia will premiere on PBS in June 2026.
Deirdre’s earlier work includes Women in Blue (2020) about women officers working to reform the Minneapolis Police Department in the years leading up to the murder of George Floyd which broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens and Care (2016) which looks at the lives of elder care workers, their clients and how America’s care system is failing both, broadcast on America Reframed. Other projects include the groundbreaking documentary, STILL DOING IT: The Intimate Lives of Women Over 65, Suicide on Campus a web documentary produced in conjunction with The New York Times Magazine; and Risk, a dramatic feature that premiered in competition at Sundance. Deirdre is a professor and the director of the BFA in film at The City College of New York.
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