While fiscal sponsorship is a component of the program, unlike other sponsoring organizations, we also provide a suite of support services such as tailored consultations, discounts to our workshops and webinars with leading industry professionals, and other essential resources.
In the last 5 years, WMM’s Production Assistance Program has helped 194 films reach completion and assisted filmmakers in raising more than $46,000,000 from government, foundation, corporate or individual, and crowd-funded sources. Since its inception, the program has been a part of raising more than $100,000,000 and helping more than 1,000 films to completion.
Films and filmmakers we have supported have been nominated for or won Academy Awards for the last 22 years, including Oscar-winning documentary CITIZENFOUR by Laura Poitras, STRONG ISLAND by Yance Ford, SUGARCANE by Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, TO KILL A TIGER by Nisha Pahuja, THE ETERNAL MEMORY by Maite Alberdi and THE BARBER OF LITTLE ROCK by John Hoffman and Christine Turner, the last two of which were directed by PA alum. The program has also supported critically acclaimed fiction features like FAMILIAR TOUCH (dir. Sarah Friedland), Dee Rees’ PARIAH, I CARRY YOU WITH ME (dir. Heidi Ewing, prod. Mynette Louie), FAREWELL AMOR (dir. Ekwa Msangi, prod. Huriyyah Muhammad, Sam Bisbee, Josh Penn), and THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL (dir. Marielle Heller). We’re thrilled to continue to have a large presence at the Sundance Film Festival, including GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT (Dir Michèle Stephenson), LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING (dir. Lisa Cortés), Sandi Tan’s SHIRKERS, which won the World Cinema Documentary Competition Award for Best Directing, and most recently SEEDS (dir. Brittany Shyne, prod. Danielle Varga), which won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Documentary. In addition to Sundance, films supported by our program premiere at major festivals like Berlin, Tribeca, CPH:DOX, and SXSW.
FIND PROJECTS AND FILMMAKERS TO SUPPORT
Home Court
HOME COURT traces the ascent of Ashley Chea, a basketball prodigy whose life intensifies amid recruitment, injury, and triumph throughout her high school years.
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Dreams of Daraa
Hanadi dreams of a safe home for her family, but that means fleeing Syria with her daughters and finding her kidnapped husband in an international whirlwind.
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A Place of Absence
Decades after the disappearance of her uncle during Argentina’s dictatorship, filmmaker Marialuisa Ernst joins the Caravan of Mothers, a group of Central American women traveling the migrant trail in search of loved ones who have disappeared trying to reach the US.
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We Are Volcanoes
Undisclosed project. Please contact filmmaking team for more information.
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Piece of Mind
PIECE OF MIND explores internal and external barriers to care for persons living with serious mental illness, the consequences and solutions, told through the stories of a man with bipolar disorder, a mother whose son has schizophrenia, and siblings of a sister with schizoaffective disorder shot by police and survived.
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From Pain, Pursuit
It's as common as cancer and causes more infertility than any other disease, yet diagnosis requires surgery, and most people wouldn't recognize its name. A filmmaker with a decade of debilitating pain seeks answers from top researchers, the inventor of video laparoscopy, and a new generation of patient-scientists.
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Big Fight in Little Chinatown
All across the globe, Chinatowns are under threat of disappearing – and along with them, the rich history of communities who fought from the margins for a place to belong. Big Fight in Little Chinatown documents the collective fight to save Chinatowns across North America.
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Traces of Brilliant Spirit
The country was occupied; revolution was brewing - three women’s lives converge as they step into history and ignite a movement. A century later, a Korean artist digs into the past, to uncover their forgotten stories and confront a nation’s legacy of silence.
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Hands On
Two determined women engage in an extraordinary endurance contest to win a car by keeping their hands on it the longest. As years pass, their unwavering resolve leads to an unexpected bond.
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After the Deluge
A year into the Covid-19 pandemic, Sharka, a scrappy expressionistic painter, finds respite from the isolation of her small apartment on a park bench. When Bridget, a self-possessed lone traveler dragging a suitcase, encroaches and sits down next to her, angry sparks fly until the two find unexpected common ground.
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Coach Emily
Emily Taylor, a Black woman and rock climbing coach in Oakland, CA, battles systemic racism in her professional and personal life as she strives to empower her students, all young girls of color, and connect them to the outdoors.
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KILLFACE
KILLFACE (USA, 16 min) is a sensory, sound-centric meditation on female strength, stamina, and struggle through the visual metaphor of a female fighter.
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Tip/Alli
In 1977, the outing of science fiction author James Tiptree, Jr. (as Alice B. Sheldon) shook the world’s sense of genre fiction as a male domain. Fifty years later, TIP/ALLI reveals the intricate life of expansive gender that produced some of the 20th century’s most celebrated speculations.
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In Balanchine's Classroom
Balanchine’s former dancers reveal startling new facets of the legendary choreographer as they open the door to his private classroom - his laboratory, set against their present-day efforts to keep his legacy alive.
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It's Not Who I Am
Women are going to jail and prison at rates that have increased by 700% since 1980, a rate 50% higher than men. When they are released, they have expectations of starting life anew, however, in their re-entry journey, they are often confronted with an unforgiving society.
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ISKRA (Spark!)
Before Silicon Valley, Apple and Google, before Microsoft and Bill Gates, there was Yugoslavia and ISKRA. Overlooked and underrated, the non-aligned Yugoslav tech giant allowed East to connect with West. It was pioneering and avant-garde. Then... it suddenly disappeared.
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4 AM (working title)
A New York artist’s desperate life is shattered and rebuilt in a raw, cinematic odyssey, fusing avant-garde dance, verité documentary, and magical realism into a pulsing testament to the city’s creative soul.
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