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
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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Taking Back The Groove
Disco legend Richie Weeks claws back the rights to his music and restores his legacy in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
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Arrest The Midwife
The shocking arrest of midwives in a rural healthcare desert leaves a community stranded, and spurs the emergence of a very unlikely group of fierce political activists – Amish and Mennonite women who break with their traditions to stand up and speak out for women’s reproductive rights.
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ithaka
This film is a project of Documentary Australia and is sponsored by Women Make Movies as part of our ongoing partnership in support of independent filmmakers.
The campaign to free Julian Assange takes on intimate dimensions in this documentary portrait of an father's fight to save his son.
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#WhileBlack
Witnesses who filmed the deaths of George Floyd, Philando Castile, and others, step forward in this ground-breaking documentary about the police brutality videos igniting global movements. Few realize how witnesses must battle online trolls, surveillance firms, and exploitative social media platforms turning their pain into profit.
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Fanny Palmer Project
Meet Fanny Palmer, the most famous artist you've never heard of. In the 1850s, Fanny fearlessly chartered her own course in the male-dominated field of lithography. Her legacy transcends art, serving as an inspiration to women today striving for financial and professional independence in a world stacked against them.
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On Three Wheels
On Three Wheels is a documentary feature that portrays the ups and downs of families raising children with disabilities through the eyes of Sandra and the work she does with her Brooklyn-based non-profit, committed to providing them with pro-bono adaptive tricycles that equip them for the ride of their lives.
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Wisdom Gone Wild
WISDOM GONE WILD is an intimate documentary presenting a new look at dementia and caregiving. Rather than a portrait of loss, dementia is seen as a wisdom that has “gone wild.”
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Caribbean Queen
Q must go against their family to become the first gay Carnival queen in Brooklyn’s Carnival parade with the help of his genderqueer bestie.
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I Brought You Into This World
"I Brought You Into This World" is an intimate, character-driven documentary following three pregnant Black individuals of varying gender identities as they navigate pregnancy in a post-Roe America. The film exposes the profound impact of political and social conditions on maternal healthcare, revealing deep racial and gender disparities.
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A Photographic Memory
A daughter attempts to piece together a portrait of her mother, a daring journalist, and a woman she never knew. Uncovering the vast archive Sheila Turner-Seed produced, including lost interviews with iconic photographers, the film explores memory, legacy and stories left untold.
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Being BeBe | The BeBe Zahara Benet Documentary
An ambitious immigrant from homophobic Cameroon struggles to build a successful career as a drag performer in the US after winning the First Season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
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Eat Bitter
Against the backdrop of civil war in the poverty-stricken Central African Republic, a Chinese construction manager and a local African laborer work on opposite ends of the spectrum to construct a sparkling new bank. As deadlines loom, unexpected twists threaten their jobs, relationships, and plans for a better life.
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Something Remains
Imagine picking up a novel, thinking it’s fiction, only to find it’s your family’s untold story during 1930s Nazi Germany. This was Carole’s shocking discovery. Her journey to uncover buried secrets reveals haunting truths of intergenerational trauma and the dark forces of exclusion that tore her family from their homeland.
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The New York Love Songs
Millennial musicians journey from jazz school to adulthood as the aughts give way to a new digital frontier in this lyrical and intimate odyssey shot over 15 years.
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Confessions of a Female Gamer
An actress, reluctantly cast as the voice of the main character (a powerful warrior queen) in a smash-hit video game, becomes an unlikely heroine for female gamers around the world – and uncovers the battles unfolding in their lives.
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