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
Caribbean Queen
Q must go against their family to become the first gay Carnival queen in Brooklyn’s Carnival parade with the help of his genderqueer bestie.
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House No.7
After escaping their conservative societies, three women, rent rooms in an old Damascene house in Damascus, Syria, where they manage to create a safe space isolated from the madness of the post-war era. But soon the girls start facing many threats, thus protecting their fragile space becomes a challenge.
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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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We Arrive With Fire | Ne-kah Nuue'm Mehl Mech
Since time immemorial, Yurok people have placed fire on the land to maintain a balanced ecosystem. In the past century, settlers banned fire and the environment and people have suffered. Now, Yurok people are returning fire medicine to heal the land.
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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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River of Grass
A time-traveling guide channeled by the land recounts the Everglades’ violent past and warns of Florida's precarious future. Told through Miami journalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas's The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), the film explores how Florida’s vulnerability to climate change is historically rooted in the Everglades’ ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.
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It's Not Who I Am
Women are going to jail and prison at rates that have increased by 700% since 1980, a rate 50% higher than men. When they are released, they have expectations of starting life anew, however, in their re-entry journey, they are often confronted with an unforgiving society.
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The Prison Outside
Sentenced to life for crimes he committed as a child, Terrence Graham took his fight for freedom all the way to the Supreme Court. After twenty-one years behind bars, he is finally getting out - but is life outside just another prison?
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Fanny Palmer Project
Meet Fanny Palmer, the most famous artist you've never heard of. In the 1850s, Fanny fearlessly chartered her own course in the male-dominated field of lithography. Her legacy transcends art, serving as an inspiration to women today striving for financial and professional independence in a world stacked against them.
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"Next Generation Sex"
What begins as a few local parental rights groups resisting sex education erupts into a national firestorm – revealing deeply personal stories and a larger cultural reckoning. At stake is the critical question: “Do kids have a fundamental right to knowledge about their own bodies and sexuality?”
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We Are Volcanoes
Undisclosed project. Please contact filmmaking team for more information.
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Battleground
With rare access to three women who lead formidable anti-abortion organizations, Battleground is a feature documentary depicting how the pro-life movement has emerged as a central force in American politics.
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None of This Matters
Amidst a personal crisis, filmmaker Shaina Feinberg reaches out to trailblazing director and teacher, Joan Darling. What unfolds over years of filming is an intimate, hilarious portrait of a mentorship, that goes beyond career guidance to become a meaningful friendship and a master class on how to be.
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MACHTAT
The daily life chronicle of Fatma and her daughters Najeh and Waffeh, wedding musicians in a small town in Tunisia.
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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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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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9-Month Contract
For an orphan Jana, motherhood has always been priceless. When she has to raise a kid single and homeless, Jana becomes a surrogate mother to offer her daughter the life she’s never had. Nine months and 14.000 USD - is it as simple and priceless as it sounds?
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Taking Venice
TAKING VENICE uncovers the true story behind rumors that the U.S. government and a team of high-placed insiders rigged the 1964 Venice Biennale – the Olympics of art – so their chosen artist, Robert Rauschenberg, could win the Grand Prize.
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