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
Dépôt-Vente
After moving to a new country for love, a filmmaker creates a loving portrait of a Beirut thrift shop that embodies the spirit of her home in Lebanon.
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How to Build a Library
Two tenacious Kenyan women are transforming a dilapidated, junk-filled library in downtown Nairobi. But first they must work with local government, raise several million dollars for the rebuild, and confront the ghosts of a problematic colonial history still trapped within the library walls.
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4 AM (working title)
A New York artist’s desperate life is shattered and rebuilt in a raw, cinematic odyssey, fusing avant-garde dance, verité documentary, and magical realism into a pulsing testament to the city’s creative soul.
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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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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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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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Fire Tender
Yurok Tribal Members return fire to the land toward cultural and ecological healing.
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The Rabbis' Intifada
Why is a group of Orthodox rabbis supporting Palestinians and calling for Israel's dismantlement? An American Jewish woman struggles to unravel the mystery of their activism.
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Coming Home: Fight for a Legacy
A group of daring women challenge gender roles to become the first female military pilots during WWII, only to have their achievements buried by the lies of those who wished them to fail.
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The Gender Project
What defines biological sex — science or society? Through immersion in the lives of people who defy simplistic gender labels, The Gender Project uses bold cinematic language to confront the dichotomy of gender, exploding binary myths with scientific, historical, and cultural revelations.
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Anarchy in High Heels
Anarchy in High Heels tells the story of Les Nickelettes, a women’s satirical musical theater company from 1970s and ‘80s San Francisco. They turned the patriarchy upside down with feminist humor and a spirit of collaboration. The film is a reminder of the subversive power of satire and sisterhood.
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Birds of War
The love story of London-based Lebanese journalist and Syrian activist/cameraman as told through thirteen years of personal archives across revolutions, war and exile.
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Wikipediology
Wikipediology is a documentary YouTube series that uncovers the hidden stories behind Wikipedia’s most contested science pages -revealing the messy, human process by which we collectively decide what counts as truth.
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Rooting Souls
Sparked by Zivia Berkowitz’s ambitious vision and self-filmed footage, ROOTING SOULS explores three emerging alpinists, organizers, & educators preparing to summit Mt. Kenya. Intricate portraits of access, representation & healing within the Black diaspora & outdoor adventure worlds emerge in this feature documentary, inviting audiences to re-envision community and success.
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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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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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