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
In the Wake of Giants
As two conservationists travel across the Indo-Pacific in search of how best to protect the ocean they love, their beliefs are challenged in a village where whales are still hunted, forcing them to confront whether their own vision of saving the ocean is part of the problem.
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Ana Mendieta: Rebel by Nature
An intimate look at artist, Ana Mendieta, whose exile from her homeland Cuba inspired her pioneering art in the landscape. Family and friends speak out after more than 30 years, interwoven with newly discovered audio of the artist alongside her visually captivating Super 8 films.
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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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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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The Soldier's Journey
What does it take for Helena, a filmmaker to pick up a weapon in the most ruthless war the world has experienced since World War II and still try not to lose hope in humanity and the future?
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The Feeling of Being Watched
When journalist Assia Boundaoui investigates rumors of surveillance in her Arab-American neighborhood in Chicago, she uncovers one of the largest FBI terrorism probes conducted before 9/11 and reveals its enduring impact on the community.
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Adios Amor - The Search for Maria Moreno
The discovery of lost photographs sparks the search for a hero that history forgot—Maria Moreno, a migrant mother who sacrificed everything but her twelve kids for farmworker justice. The first female farmworker in the U.S. hired as a union organizer, Maria’s story was silenced and her legacy buried—until now.
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Flashing
How women around the world experience and address menopause - a critical and understudied realm of women's sexual health and reproduction.
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DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE
With innovative dark humor, DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE examines how the promise of an American multiracial democracy faces a renewed backlash, culminating in the very real fears of an actual authoritarian takeover.
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The Island in Me
Homecoming follows two women Johnny Frisbie and Amelia Borofsky who, after decades away, return to their beloved childhood atoll of Pukapuka in the South Pacific. The film reveals a unique story of love, survival and indigenous resiliency in the midst of rising tides and migration.
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WOMEN OF STEEL
1980-1994: hundreds of migrant/working-class women campaigned for equality against BHP, the biggest and most powerful company in Australia. In WOMEN OF STEEL, these ordinary women tell their personal stories of how they beat a giant and changed the workplace rules for women and men throughout the country.
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256,000 Miles From Home
On July 1, 2019, four former unaccompanied child refugees, now between 83 and 92 years old, arrive in Vienna, Austria, to begin a trip retracing the route they took 80 years ago, as Kindertransport children, traveling alone, without parents, fleeing to save their lives.
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DAUGHTERS OF THE FOREST
Lis and Juli are unlikely heroes: instead of weapons or shields, they carry baskets to collect mushrooms. These indigenous foragers and scientists lead this immersive docu-sci fi journey through Mexico’s forests to unveil secrets from the Queendom — the world of fungi and those whose lives intertwine with it.
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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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GOVERNMENT! The Agencies We Think We Know
GOVERNMENT! The Agencies We Think We Know is a series of ten feature documentaries, each one focusing on a U.S. government agency. We will tell the dramatic and unexpected stories of why these agencies were founded in the first place, how they evolved, and how they function today.
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Rocky Flats
What happens when a massive nuclear weapons plant closes down in your neighborhood? ROCKY FLATS is the story of one community's fight in Colorado to uncover the truth about the toxic legacy of the Cold War in their backyards.
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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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