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
MAILIN
Mailin tells her daughter a bedtime story, a metaphor unfolding the protagonists’ search to recover the memory of her past. Through a collage of archive and childhood drawings, emerges the story of a girl, who for 15 years suffered the abuses of a priest that Justice has just set free.
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My Name Is Andrea
A cinematic evocation of key moments from the life of feminist outlaw Andrea Dworkin, maverick thinker and intellectual genius of the 20th Century. Through innovative use of archival footage and expressionistic dramatizations, the film pushes the creative boundaries of biographical documentary to challenge the current narratives on gendered violence.
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My Color
My Color is a fantastical documentary window into the lives and minds of loveable misfits using color to escape, heal, and empower.
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May It Be A Girl
MAY IT BE A GIRL is a film about the personal search for the identity of Kazakh women, who were named, according to an ancient tradition, by their parent’s wishes for them to be born as a son.
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Mothering in the Movement
Mothering in the Movement is part mother-daughter buddy film, part investigative saga that follows Brooklyn's most outspoken poet-activist Staceyann Chin, as she navigates being a mom while discovering the truth about her own mother who abandoned her as an infant.
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Made in Ethiopia
Flamboyant Chinese businesswoman Motto needs every bit of mettle and charm she can muster to drive forward the biggest Chinese industrial park in Ethiopia. Having staked their future on the promise of industrialization, Ethiopian farmer Workinesh and factory worker Beti - like their country - find themselves at a crossroads.
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MACHTAT
The daily life chronicle of Fatma and her daughters Najeh and Waffeh, wedding musicians in a small town in Tunisia.
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Myself When I Am Real
Set in the year 2000, MYSELF WHEN I AM REAL is an experimental short film about a working mother and her teenage daughter who struggle to make friends and find belonging in a small Wisconsin town. It explores otherness, identity, and assimilation from the contrasting perspectives of childhood and adulthood.
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Miles to Go Before She Sleeps
YANG, an idealistic schoolteacher, is on a mission to stop the slaughtering of dogs in provinces where canine consumption is glorified as a cultural tradition. While a contentious animal protection law makes its way through the courts, she investigates with steely determination why countless pets are disappearing from their homes.
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Most Dangerous Women: Women of the West
A documentary short featuring women changemakers working to create a more just world. In the film, contemporary leaders in the U.S. West reflect on the early legacy of visible women in the region, as well as the challenges they and their peers face today, and their hopes for the future.
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The Martha Mitchell Effect
She was once as famous as Jackie O. And then she tried to take down a President. Martha Mitchell was the unlikeliest of whistleblowers: a Republican cabinet wife who was discredited by the Nixon Administration in 1972 to keep her quiet. Until now.
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The Mask That Grins And Lies
The Mask that Grins and Lies is a meditative documentary feature that uncovers the intergenerational silence shrouding black women’s mental illness.
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Milisuthando
‘Milisuthando’ is a coming-of-age personal essay film on love and what it means to be human in the context of race, explored through the memories of Milisuthando – who grew up during apartheid but didn’t know it was happening until it was over.
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