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
ithaka
This film is a project of Documentary Australia and is sponsored by Women Make Movies as part of our ongoing partnership in support of independent filmmakers.
The campaign to free Julian Assange takes on intimate dimensions in this documentary portrait of an father's fight to save his son.
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Big Rock Burning
A gripping documentary exploring the resilient spirit of Malibu's Big Rock community as they rebuild from the ashes of the devastating Palisades Fire, one of America's worst wildfires.
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Basketball Heaven
Basketball Heaven follows filmmaker Resita Cox as she journeys through time to her hometown, Kinston, NC: the largest producer of NBA talent in the world. Basketball Heaven is a poetic community portrait of the unsung heroes and rich history of this small, Southern Black town.
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The Dead Zone
Every day, half a million forgotten Americans languish in THE DEAD ZONE, the limbo between arrest and conviction. Innocent people die in jail and can be held for years because of the profit motivated pretrial detention system. But four extraordinary people are trying to offer a blueprint for change.
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PERSIS
PERSIS is a documentary film exploring the legacy of the unheralded model-turned-actor Persis Khambatta.
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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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After the Deluge
A year into the Covid-19 pandemic, Sharka, a scrappy expressionistic painter, finds respite from the isolation of her small apartment on a park bench. When Bridget, a self-possessed lone traveler dragging a suitcase, encroaches and sits down next to her, angry sparks fly until the two find unexpected common ground.
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Reproductive Choices: Revisiting La Operacion
A documentary challenging the long-held belief that the U.S. government forced Puerto Rican women to be sterilized; the truth is more complex and examining the evidence from the women themselves casts a whole new light on this story.
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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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Exit Here
Exit Here embeds with one London funeral home guiding bereaved families through grief, and the terminally ill through their last days, as they plan final farewells. Interweaving stories of love and loss that build to bespoke celebrations of life, this honest exploration of death shows us how to live.
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No Human Involved
NO HUMAN INVOLVED: a woman is destroyed by a 27-month prison sentence for prostitution in Arizona, the tenacity of those who fight for justice in her name.
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Index:Trace
Index:Trace is a film that portrays the past, present, and future impacts of the nuclear fuel trajectory in all 50 states, — uranium mines, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and nuclear waste — as told by impacted communities, scientists and activists who are working together for nuclear abolition and environmental justice.
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Hyde Park
Bound by a legacy of toxic soil and systemic neglect, three families in a historic Black neighborhood in Augusta, Georgia, wage a decades-long battle against seven industrial giants to survive. Through their unrelenting pursuit and activism, they navigate a grueling seven-year relocation to reclaim the health and dignity they deserve.
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Unlocked aka Kings Park: Stories from an American Mental Institution
"Unlocked" is a groundbreaking digital learning site created for people going into healthcare and professionals already working in the field. Building on the success of the "Kings Park" documentary, "Unlocked" features a wealth of personal stories with individuals who have experienced the U.S. mental healthcare system firsthand.
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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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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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Karuara, People of the River
A film about spiritual beings that live in the Amazons’ rivers, and an indigenous community’s struggle to save these sacred water guardians.
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The Coma Club
THE COMA CLUB follows four matriarchs as their loved ones emerge from comas caused by injuries sustained during America's recent wars. Moving between an annual retreat and their lives back home, the film offers a rare, intimate portrait of caregiving and the resilience of families living in combat’s long shadow.
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