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
Before The Feast (Nilam Kātha Kālam)
A bittersweet story of love, loss and legacy. In Kochi’s sea-facing salt marshes, aging farmer Vincent is the keeper of a rare seed for the next generation. When a rising sea conspires to damage his crops, causing his family to drift away, an unexpected tragedy causes the tides to turn.
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Seeing Stars
In this genre bending solo musical film, a legally blind writer waits in her eye Doctor’s office suspecting her low but long stable vision may be changing. Fighting fear, she inhabits her own stories of women with limited sight and limitless vision, turning them into stars to light her way.
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The Endless Frontier
THE ENDLESS FRONTIER follows four passionate researchers hunting for cures and protecting the planet from disaster, when they unexpectedly find themselves on the frontlines in the fight for the future of science itself.
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Ex Libris, A Life in Bookplates
EX LIBRIS is an animated documentary film tracing the intimate, intricate world my grandfather created and lost in Vienna between the two world wars, and the exploding universe he reflected in his diaries.
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FLANA (formerly WOMEN OF MY LIFE)
Born in the home of a Baghdad midwife, director Zahraa is a witness to violence against women from girlhood. In a cinematic journey she interrogates the past in search of her missing friend and confronts lifelong fears and nightmares as she works with other women to imagine a better future.
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Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau, the inconnu célèbre, was one of the most celebrated and prolific figures in France of the 20th century. Explore his life, not-stop artistic output and the personal moments that formed him in this feature documentary.
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Disruption
A British artist-activist, a game designer, and a queer farmer in India create a survival game, only to face the brutal realities of climate change, corporate greed, and identity. As life imitates play, winning demands sacrifices they never anticipated.
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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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TO HOLD A MOUNTAIN
In the pristine mountains of Montenegro, a semi-nomadic mother and daughter defend their herding tradition and their land from becoming a NATO military training ground. A gripping family and environmental drama unfolds, as the story of violence against women echoes that of violence against nature.
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Libertad (Working Title)
Alejandra, an Indigenous, transgender woman from Oaxaca, Mexico prepares to visit her hometown to reunite with her mother for the first time after 28 years in the United States. Alejandra's homecoming journey is explored through the multiple communities she identifies with as she calls for solidarity and mutual liberation.
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Untitled NY Dance Film
A raw, cinematic, experimental dance film, that features New York’s avant guard arts scene, and encapsulates the life a New York artist through a mash up of original choreography, music, verite documentary, and magical realism.
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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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1946: THE MISTRANSLATION THAT SHIFTED CULTURE
A journey which unveils the mystery of how theology, history, culture, and politics led to a Biblical mistranslation, the man who tried to stop it, and the impassioned academic crusade of the LGBTQIA+ Christian community-driven to discover the truth.
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Call Me Dancer
When a hip-hop dancer accidentally walks into a ballet class in Mumbai, his world opens up and a passion is born. The tough ballet master recognizes his talent and dares him to fulfill his dreams of dancing professionally - giving him the courage to defy family, culture and poverty.
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A Double Life
The filmmaker goes on a journey of discovery to unravel the mystery of her uncle’s past as a civil rights activist lawyer and political fugitive and his alleged involvement in an alleged prison escape attempt which left six people dead, his 13 years as a political fugitive and his return in 1984 to stand trial and gain his acquittal in 1986, returning to his legal aid work after 15 years. The film presents a multi-layered portrait of a turbulent era and the role of one individual seeking justice for others and later for himself.
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Stand Up for Madinah
“STAND UP FOR MADINAH” follows the first female Muslim legislator in Delaware as she challenges the Biden administration on the ongoing war in Gaza. When she is not confronting the establishment, Madinah is spending time at comedy clubs trying her luck to find success as a local stand up comedian.
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Here, the Silence is Heard
Gabriela's family escaped the Chilean dictatorship when her grandfather's life was in serious danger. 50 years later, Gabriela, who has inherited the trauma despite her being raised in Spain, returns to reopen the doors of the home they left behind.
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