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
Jamaica Kincaid: Liberating the Daffodil (working title)
This riveting portrait of writer Jamaica Kincaid traces her life from growing up in colonial Antigua, to working as an au pair in Scarsdale, N.Y. as a teenager, to becoming a staff writer for The New Yorker at age 26.
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The People Vs. Austerity/El Pueblo Vs. La Austerdad
Democracy was on the ballot in Puerto Rico in 2024's historic election, as workers, activists and journalists faced off against a corrupt government and an unelected Oversight Board. Just as in NYC and Detroit before, they fight to regain basic services and end the cycle of debt and austerity.
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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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One Night in Tantura
Director, Hala Gabriel, a Palestinian refugee from Syria, uncovers the hidden story of internment camps, massacres, cover-ups and atrocities from victims and perpetrators in a journey of exploration to understand why she was born a refugee.
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Dreams of Daraa
Hanadi dreams of a safe home for her family, but that means fleeing Syria with her daughters and finding her kidnapped husband in an international whirlwind.
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Gregory & Veronique: From Paris to Hollywood
Gregory & Veronique: From Paris to Hollywood is an intimate look at Gregory Peck’s legendary life and career, exploring his challenges and triumphs, and the impact that he and his wife Veronique made on Hollywood, told through personal archives: letters, home movies, and stories from those who knew them best.
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Hear, Eat, Home
A lyric portrait of how—through art, friendship, music, and food—New York immigrant musicians and artists understand the upheavals they faced in their home countries and answer new challenges that emerge as they make the US their home.
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Cosmic Moose and Grizzly Bears Ville
Peter Valentine, living on disability in an apartment, fought MIT while they demolished his neighborhood to develop University Park, claiming he couldn’t leave because it was his electromagnetic laboratory. Eventually, MIT gifted him the entire building, moving it to another street. Peter was diagnosed schizophrenic and unmedicated all his life.
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Terracotta Daughters
Terracotta Daughters is a feature-length documentary following eight Chinese girls from 2015 to 2030, whose portraits inspired Prune Nourry’s 2012 art installation of 108 sculptures modeled on the Terracotta Army of Xian. At once intimate and political, the film captures their journey from childhood to adulthood.
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Hope of Escape
A true story that follows the incredible journey of an enslaved mother and daughter who must escape before they are sold and separated forever. Their only hope is to connect with their free relatives in the North and convince the most powerful abolitionists of their time to help them.
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TURBULENCE
How do we overcome the heartbreaks, sorrows and traumas we endure or witness, and come out whole?
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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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Hollywood Does Abortion
HOLLYWOOD DOES ABORTION reveals how depictions of abortion in film and television have both reflected and distorted this safe but controversial medical procedure. Exploring how abortion came into our living rooms and psyches, we see how these stories helped shape public discourse and today’s seismic shift in abortion access.
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Rubbish: The Queer Kingdom of Leilah Babirye
The decade-long story of a queer artist-activist from Uganda transforming discarded rubbish into visions of liberation.
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Take Me Home
Anna, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a cognitive disability, cares for her aging parents in a fragile balance of meeting each others’ needs. When a Florida heat wave shatters their family and Anna’s routine, her future is uncertain - until she creates a world where she can thrive.
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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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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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