Since its inception, the Production Assistance Program has assisted in the completion of hundreds of projects, including Oscar-winning documentary CITIZENFOUR by Laura Poitras, Oscar nominee STRONG ISLAND by Yance Ford, and Sandi Tan’s SHIRKERS, which won the World Cinema Documentary Competition Award for Best Directing at Sundance in 2018. In the last 5 years, WMM’s PA Program has helped 136 films reach completion and assisted filmmakers in raising more than $28,000,000 from government, foundation, corporate or individual, and crowd-funded sources.
Below you can browse, learn more about, and support select films fiscally sponsored through our Production Assistance Program. You can take part in helping women’s visions reach the screen by making a tax-deductible donation to any of the projects featured here. With your help, we can continue to see advancements in feminist filmmaking every day. Hopefully, with our collective efforts to support these artists, more opportunities and celebrated accomplishments will continue to flourish.
FIND PROJECTS AND FILMMAKERS TO SUPPORT
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 Overdose Murders (w/t)
A thought-provoking examination of the divisive topic of drug-induced homicides - a crime that refers to the delivery of drugs that result in a fatal overdose. In many states, the minimum sentence for this crime is life in prison.
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The Kindertransport Journey Project (Working title)
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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THE BENGALI
Crossing many borders, one woman travels from the African-American community of New Orleans, the city of her birth, to Bengali India, where her grandfather came from. The untold story of ties between South Asians and African-Americans in the U.S.
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Kumina Queen
Imogene “Queenie” Kennedy was a contemporary priestess in post-colonial Jamaica who catapulted her African spiritual practice into renown. But after centuries of erasure, what remains of the dance between the living and the dead?
In the wake of the loss of her mother, the filmmaker travels into the heart of Jamaican countryside to research kumina, an ancestral ritual. The ancient practice, she learns, is a driving force in Jamaica's culture and identity, yet its leaders have historically been discarded as witches and criminalized. Jamaica's post-colonial renaissance enabled Queenie to share her practice with the world. Today, artists and followers are reimagining kumina, even as the mysterious world of spirit possession reveals divergent pathways to freedom, healing, and transformation.
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Pray Away
When a small group of former Christian superstars who infamously ran the “pray the gay away” movement come out as LGBTQ, a journey of personal redemption and an exposé of a movement begins.
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The Mask That Grins And Lies
The Mask that Grins and Lies is a meditative documentary feature that uncovers the intergenerational silence shrouding black women’s mental illness.
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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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Pyramid Club - The Movie
NYC Drag queens, punks, and rebels weave a collective story of the culturally influential gem of a nightclub, the 1980s Pyramid Cocktail lounge. Theirs is a story of pushing limits, creativity, love, grief and survival, in a place where everyone belongs, in a city that is all but abandoned.
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black yogi.
Three black Yoga Masters share intimate accounts of radical transformation and triumph via the revolutionary medium of yoga. We reveal how this ancient practice miraculously changed the trajectory of their lives during the civil rights era, while also delving into their current efforts to integrate yoga into the black community.
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Jarmo
JARMO is an essay in seven parts, tracing the rise and fall of human civilization through the stories of agriculture.
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Presente!
When Marielle Franco, a Brazilian black city councilwoman known for advocating for human rights and fighting against police brutality, is tragically murdered by military police, black female leaders rise throughout Brazil determined to honour her legacy towards positive change, no matter the circumstances or the risks they face.
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BEBA
BEBA is a poetic, raw and ruthless coming of age tale, in which a young NYC born and bred Afro-Latina stares down historical, societal, and generational trauma with unflinching courage.
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Little Sallie Walker
As Black women from across the generations make their way through a less than idyllic America, they contemplate how the childhood play that once served as their lifeline might be magical enough to liberate and heal them now.
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Midwives
Two midwives, one Buddhist and one Muslim, defy strict ethnic divisions to work side by side in a makeshift clinic in western Myanmar, providing medical services to the Rohingya of Rakhine State. Over five years we witness their struggles, hopes and dreams amidst an environment of ever-increasing chaos and violence.
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Taking Venice: The Rauschenberg Factor
Against a background of danger, challenge and change in America, this is the untold story of the intrigue and events that converted one artist from Cold War pawn into outspoken international champion of free expression and social change.
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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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Feed Me A Story
Feed Me a Story is a transmedia project - film, interactive and performative - that embarks on a community-based multicultural journey through food. The project explores the concept of what it means to be an American and incorporates the quintessential American road trip with cultural history and contemporary influences.
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