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
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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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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ARTIFACTS
The life of a successful yet isolated photographer changes as she learns how to cope with a rare visual disease.
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As Prescribed
“Benzo warriors” fight a grassroots battle to save others from the devastating consequences of the little pill they took as prescribed.
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As Slow As Possible
From the unhurried movements of Icelandic glaciers to a 639 year-long musical performance in Germany, stories of geological, human, and cosmic time intersect in a cinematic exploration of time and timelessness.
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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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Untitled Kenyan Politics Project
At a moment of historical transformation for Kenya’s ancient Lamu archipelago, the race for Governor has become a battle of extremely high-stakes. Amidst waves of violent terror attacks, billion dollar infrastructure projects, ethnic tensions and an open hostility towards female leadership, the winner will set this sleepy historical fishing village onto a trajectory that could make or break the community forever.
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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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Anne Sexton:
Tell Me Your Answer True
She loved life and yearned for death. Anne Sexton, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, ‘one of the most important American poets of her generation’ was encouraged to write as an antidote to her open struggle with social convention, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. For the first time, a film follows the paths of this fascinating woman poet.
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The Milky Sea
A feature documentary film about the hunt for a rare glowing ocean phenomenon that has captivated mariners for centuries.
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Standing Above the Clouds
When the massive Thirty Meter Telescope is proposed to be built on Mauna Kea, an uprising of kiaʻi (protectors) in Hawaiʻi and around the world dedicate their lives to protecting the sacred mountain from destruction. Through the lens of mothers and daughters in three Native Hawaiian families, Standing Above the Clouds explores intergenerational healing and the impacts of safeguarding cultural traditions.
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Razing Liberty Square
Razing Liberty Square is a feature documentary about the development, decline and redevelopment of Liberty Square, Miami, the oldest segregated public housing community in the history of the United States. Best known as setting for the Oscar-winning movie Moonlight.
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Being Olimpia
After creating a groundbreaking law against cyberviolence, Olimpia wages an internal battle to heal her wounds and reclaim her name.
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8x10
8x10: From The Confines of Solitary To The Front Lines of Criminal Justice Reform is the story of one man’s experience with solitary confinement and his journey to change a system bent on destroying his humanity.
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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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This Body, Too/ Y Este Cuerpo Tambien
Face with the decision to replace my expired breast implants or have them removed, I grapple with the concepts of femininity and gender norms as a Dominican immigrant and an intersex-woman.
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SEEDS
SEEDS is an ethnographic portrait of a centennial African-American farm in Thomasville, Georgia. Using lyrical black and white imagery this meditative film examines the decline of generational black farmers and the significance of owning land.
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