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
Unlocked aka Kings Park: Stories from an American Mental Institution
"Unlocked" is a groundbreaking digital learning site created for people going into healthcare and professionals already working in the field. Building on the success of the "Kings Park" documentary, "Unlocked" features a wealth of personal stories with individuals who have experienced the U.S. mental healthcare system firsthand.
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Providencia
When a Colombian woman confronts a genetic legacy of early-onset Alzheimer’s, her family's fate becomes entwined with scientists racing for a cure, before memory itself disappears.
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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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Good Fire
After more than one hundred years of fire suppression, Yurok people are returning Indigenous fire medicine to the land in order to heal the world.
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No Human Involved
NO HUMAN INVOLVED: a woman is destroyed by a 27-month prison sentence for prostitution in Arizona, the tenacity of those who fight for justice in her name.
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Postmortem
POSTMORTEM, a hybrid documentary film, is a boundary-pushing, family crime drama about an abused girl who didn’t tell her childhood secret—and the woman she becomes, who does.
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Blind AF
A blind female Paralympic champion and world-record holder sets out to become the first blind person to ride a single, non-tandem, bike across the US, while confronting painful truths about her past that she’s spent a lifetime trying to outrun. Blind AF is about trauma, transcendence and power of self-belief.
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Recovery City
Recovery City is an intimate, unflinching portrait of four bold women who refuse to let themselves or their community give in to the stigma and despair of addiction.
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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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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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Sundays at Café Tabac
Step into the electrifying realm of radical glamour, where Sundays at Café Tabac immortalizes the iconic lesbian night that lit up New York’s East Village from 1993 to 1995. A vibrant celebration of diversity and unapologetic self-expression, this unforgettable gathering not only transformed lives but also mirrored the surge of visibility that sent shockwaves through mainstream media—during a time when being seen was a matter of survival.
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THE COST
The truth about Alice Munro emerged only after her death. For her daughter Andrea, the story is not about legacy or outrage, but about what happens when everyone knows and nothing changes.
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This Way Out
'This Way Out' is a feature documentary following a group of previously incarcerated seniors as they fight for reforms to the parole boards of New York. This character-driven documentary explores the concepts of punishment, redemption, and what it means to heal.
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Little Sallie Walker
How did generations of Black women and girls across America, including the film's director, find themselves fighting for joy and healing? LITTLE SALLIE WALKER, an intimate documentary, explores how their precious worlds of play collide with a unique set of traumas and struggles from both the past and present.
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