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
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[ID] => 500
[title] => The Feeling of Being Watched
[text] => Update: the INVERSE SURVEILLANCE PROJECT
For over two years THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED team has been designing and producing the INVERSE SURVEILLANCE PROJECT, an immersive co-created new media installation designed and produced by the Arab and Muslim American communities in the Chicagoland area. The installation will take the form of a life-sized labyrinth that will be the canvas for an immersive community archive experience that repurposes the thousands of records collected during a decade of FBI surveillance (as depicted in the film) as a site of collective healing and a reclaiming of narrative. To learn more, visit InverseSurveillance.com
All donations through WMM will now go to support The Inverse Surveillance Project. Thank you for your support!
In the Arab-American neighborhood outside of Chicago where director Assia Boundaoui grew up, most of her neighbors think they have been under surveillance for over a decade. While investigating their experiences, Assia uncovers tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counterterrorism investigations ever conducted in the U.S. before 9/11, code-named “Operation Vulgar Betrayal.” With unprecedented access, THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker’s examination of why her community fell under blanket government surveillance.
[logline] => 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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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.
Learn more
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[title] => Home Court
[text] => Ashley is a Cambodian American basketball phenom. Her natural talent and tenacity makes coaches and family want to support her even when they don’t always know how. Filmed over three years, HOME COURT is a coming-of-age story that follows Ashley’s family dynamics, both tender and tragic, as she navigates being one of the top basketball recruits in the country.
[logline] => HOME COURT traces the ascent of Ashley Chea, a basketball prodigy whose life intensifies amid recruitment, injury, and triumph throughout her high school years.
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Home Court
HOME COURT traces the ascent of Ashley Chea, a basketball prodigy whose life intensifies amid recruitment, injury, and triumph throughout her high school years.
Learn more
Array
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[title] => Darcelle
[text] => Born in 1930 and raised in suburban Portland, Walter Cole went to war, married his high school sweetheart, had two children, and then, at age 37, put on a dress and became Darcelle XV. In the 1970s, Walter opened Darcelle XV’s Showplace, now the longest running drag show in America. Until her passing in 2023, Darcelle was the World’s Oldest Performing Drag Queen, working until the day she died at 92 – with her bedazzled walker in hand, and even a rendition of Rhinestone Cowboy, assless chaps and all. DARCELLE is the story of a single life. But it’s also the story of how tenacity and bravery in the face of unrelenting prejudice, changed lives and opportunities for generations to come. In the style of films like Ask Dr. Ruth and RBG, DARCELLE is a biopic that goes beyond the cover story and gives viewers a chance to witness the impact of a living legend. Filmed over the course of the last three years of Walter Cole/Darcelle's life and featuring hundreds of hours of never-before-seen performance footage and home movies from Walter/Darcelle’s life stretching back to the 1970s, DARCELLE is an intimate portrait of an exceptional life, lived with each of us in mind.
[logline] => Until her passing in 2023, Darcelle XV was the World’s Oldest Performing Drag Queen. DARCELLE is the story of a single life. But it’s also the story of how tenacity and bravery in the face of unrelenting prejudice, changed lives and opportunities for generations to come.
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Darcelle
Until her passing in 2023, Darcelle XV was the World’s Oldest Performing Drag Queen. DARCELLE is the story of a single life. But it’s also the story of how tenacity and bravery in the face of unrelenting prejudice, changed lives and opportunities for generations to come.
Learn more
Array
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[title] => And Then One Day… (formerly SOMETHING REMAINS)
[text] => In the rural German town of Ellwangen, high school students in 2000 were challenged by their teacher to find out who were the last Jews to go to their school. Their discovery of Erich Levi — one of the last Jewish students — inspired a novel that, years later, would cross continents and time to reach me. When I opened that book in 2016 and saw the names of my own relatives woven into its pages, fiction and family collided.
The film unfolds on two interwoven threads. One follows those earlier students who, during a time when Germany’s democracy felt secure and the return of fascism seemed unthinkable, investigated their town’s forgotten Jewish past. The other follows me and a new generation of students, twenty-five years later, as we reopen the same archives together. Across decades, our shared search uncovers what happened to the Jews, the disabled, political dissenters and LGBTQ+ individuals, who were forced to flee or deported to their deaths — and what these stories reveal about how democracy unravels.
As we dig deeper, we piece together how Ellwangen’s once-thriving cattle trade — built on trust between Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors — was quietly dismantled through propaganda and exclusion. The students and I trace these micro-histories, one document and one memory at a time, uncovering how small shifts in language and law can destroy livelihoods and relationships.
Through the voices of students, teachers, historians, and artist Gunter Demnig — whose Stolpersteine memorials keep these names alive — And Then One Day explores how truth and memory are never static. By focusing on one small town and one family, the film reveals how the smallest details can expose the largest lessons — and how the echoes of the 1930s still reverberate, quietly but unmistakably, in our world today.
[logline] => After uncovering her Jewish family’s names in a German novel, a filmmaker returns to her ancestral rural town. Immersed with contemporary high school students, she discovers how Nazi-era laws erased lives who thrived there for generations—exposing how nations collapse not always in chaos, but through silence and compliance.
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And Then One Day… (formerly SOMETHING REMAINS)
After uncovering her Jewish family’s names in a German novel, a filmmaker returns to her ancestral rural town. Immersed with contemporary high school students, she discovers how Nazi-era laws erased lives who thrived there for generations—exposing how nations collapse not always in chaos, but through silence and compliance.
Learn more
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[title] => Untitled Kenyan Politics Project
[text] => Please contact [email protected] for a detailed deck and trailer.
[logline] => 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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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.
Learn more
Array
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[ID] => 158433
[title] => The People Vs. Austerity/El Pueblo Vs. La Austerdad
[text] => In THE PEOPLE VS. AUSTERITY, filmmaker Vivian Vázquez Irizarry examines how an unelected Fiscal Control Board in Puerto Rico gutted essential services to pay off Wall Street, in a playbook developed during financial crises in 1970’s New York City and 2013 Detroit. Connected to Puerto Rico by family and culture, Vivian joins journalists, workers and families in Puerto Rico to challenge the island’s all-powerful Board, which was installed by Congress to manage a $130 billion debt.
Since 2016, the Board’s austerity cuts have decimated basic services like education, health and electricity, and half a million Puerto Ricans have fled an economy in freefall. As reporters at the Center for Investigative Reporting (CPI) investigate the Board’s policies, a citizen’s movement to audit the debt builds to demand accountability. But the Board pushes through a controversial deal to privatize the island’s Electric Authority. 3,000 linemen are fired, electric bills skyrocket and the lights go out for millions across the island.
Vivian draws parallels to her New York City childhood, which in 1975 was ruled by one of the country’s first Fiscal Oversight Boards. This fiscal control blueprint was replicated across the country, as in 2013 Detroit, when an unelected Emergency Manager shut off water to 100,000 “undeserving” residents.
As the 2024 election approaches, a new opposition party is on the rise, bringing together every sector of Puerto Rico to challenge the Board’s power, reclaim the Electric Authority for the public good and create a livable future for all.
[logline] => Democracy was on the ballot in Puerto Rico in 2024's historic election, as workers, activists and journalists faced off against a corrupt government and an unelected Oversight Board. Just as in NYC and Detroit before, they fight to regain basic services and end the cycle of debt and austerity.
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[alt] => Two women wearing colorful scarves speak to the press outside of the United States Supreme Court
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The People Vs. Austerity/El Pueblo Vs. La Austerdad
Democracy was on the ballot in Puerto Rico in 2024's historic election, as workers, activists and journalists faced off against a corrupt government and an unelected Oversight Board. Just as in NYC and Detroit before, they fight to regain basic services and end the cycle of debt and austerity.
Learn more
Array
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[ID] => 163093
[title] => Tell Me No Lies: The Real John Pilger
[text] => John Pilger was a journalistic legend. One of the world’s most celebrated foreign correspondents, he made over 60 films, wrote eight best-selling books and thousands of newspaper articles. Over five decades, he broke an endless stream of high-profile stories; from Pol Pot's Cambodia to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, to many, he was an iconic hero. However, to his critics, in government and the press, he was nothing more than a left-wing agitator and distorter of the truth. This feature documentary will tell the definitive and remarkable story of this journalistic icon. Not simply a tribute to a glittering career, but a headlong dive into the controversies and battles that defined him.
[logline] => Tell Me No Lies will tell the inside story of John Pilger, Australia’s most famous journalist.
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Tell Me No Lies: The Real John Pilger
Tell Me No Lies will tell the inside story of John Pilger, Australia’s most famous journalist.
Learn more
Array
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[title] => FLANA (formerly WOMEN OF MY LIFE)
[text] => Crimes are being committed in all social classes against girls and women in Baghdad. Particularly since the American war and occupation of Iraq. Subconsciously all women feel threatened that they can be the next victim of violence at any moment.
This reality pushes, investigative journalist Zahraa Ghandour to investigate the story of her childhood friend Noor. When both girls were only 9 years old, Zahraa witnessed Noor's family dragging her away, leading to her abandonment and disappearance. In her journey to find her missing friend, Zahraa uncovers secret worlds of abuse against women, crimes that happen with impunity and stories of girls who have managed to escape their disappearance.
Through a multifaceted search that pans back and forth in time, Zahraa must navigate her girlhood trauma and reality, where the death and disappearance of women are a daily occurrence in a war-ravaged Iraq.
With other women survivors who choose to fight back, Zahraa challenges reality by imagining a life free of fear for Iraqi women. She asks: how is it possible to find the truth about what happened to Noor in the middle of this chaos? How does one break out of this endless cycle of fear that everyone here is stuck in?
[logline] => 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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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.
Learn more
Array
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[ID] => 84318
[title] => LISTEN TO MY HEARTBEAT
[text] => Washington, D.C. may be the political epicenter of the world, but residents beyond Capitol Hill have long battled socioeconomic disparity and fought to have their voice heard. As the city gentrifies, black residents have been pushed to the outskirts, along with their homegrown folkloric music: Go-Go.
We follow: TOB, a popular Go-Go band with a large youth following. TOB is fighting the erasure of Black people and culture through music. LIL CHRIS is the conductor of the twelve-piece band and, as the “lead mic,” he tells the crowd what is going on. FLIP, LIL CHRIS’s older brother, creates harmonizing melodies that blend with his little brother’s lyrics. People of all ages stand in line in anticipation of hearing TOB, dancing and to have their neighborhood stamped. Stamping is when a Go-Go band shouts out the name of a neighborhood, as if to say you were here and you mattered. In the face of housing gentrification and cultural erasure, this is one of a few places where Black Washingtonians are seen, recognized, and celebrated. This is one of a few places that reflects the old D.C. As the city gentrifies, many of those neighborhoods no longer exist.
While TOB fights to keep the essence of Go-Go alive many of their concerts are shut down. We follow TOB as they go from being musicians to activist fighting to save Go-Go music.Through the film we discover there have been different methods of shutting down Go-Go concerts and even tracking Go-Go bands. These methods have been pushed through local government, micro laws / bills and even noise violations.
The story of gentrification, Go-Go, and politics collide when we meet TRAYON WHITE, a community organizer and school board member. While TOB stamps D.C. residents on the Go-Go Stage, TRAYON is working to stamp the future of D.C.’s residents through legislation. After TRAYON’s mentor - Mayor Marion Berry - died while in office, the Black residents rallied behind TRAYON to run for office to protect them from looming erasure. TRAYON is running for city council in the poorest section of the city and the last to be gentrified. TRAYON grew up on Go-Go, is an ally to the culture, and often works with the Go-Go community to get the political word out and protest unlawful developments and actions happening in the city. TRAYON is on the front lines of Ward 8, running interference between politicians, police, black residents, youth and developers who have open wallets and eyes on his community.
After years of contention between the Go-Go community, local politicians and new residents in the Spring of 2019 the story of Go-Go and Gentrification goes viral. Central Communications is a cellphone store and Washington, D.C, Go-Go landmark. The store has been playing Go-Go music outside of its store since 1990’s. The store is one of the last places in the city where you can still hear Go-Go music being played. After new residents complained about the store playing Go-Go music, a campaign / rallying cry named #dontmutedc went viral, and a change.org petition started. We follow TOB as they take to the street to protest the shutting down of the store. As TOB performed on the street, more than 3,000 people gathered to protest with the band. The protest caused Go-Go lovers and Black residents to protest and get politically active. Here we see the inception of TOB as activist.
TOB and TRAYON work alongside each other, and through their shared story we show the intersection of music, activism and politics. Amid the film we see Trayon go from community activist to politician, and we see TOB go from musicians to Go-Go activists.
LISTEN TO MY HEARTBEAT highlights the culture of Go-Go and its significance to the foundation of Washington, D.C. The film investigates the politics, the over-policing and the gentrification that have led to the displacement of the poor and working-class residents of the city and their music. This is a story of resistance. We tell the story of a community fighting for their humanity, their community, their sound and their…heartbeat.
[logline] => LISTEN TO MY HEARTBEAT looks at the gentrification of Washington, DC, through the lens of the city's folkloric music - Go-Go. Amid a gentrification boom, DC natives are facing erasure. The film examines a changing city and the future of the music that gave them a voice.
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LISTEN TO MY HEARTBEAT
LISTEN TO MY HEARTBEAT looks at the gentrification of Washington, DC, through the lens of the city's folkloric music - Go-Go. Amid a gentrification boom, DC natives are facing erasure. The film examines a changing city and the future of the music that gave them a voice.
Learn more
Array
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[title] => Devi
[text] => Devi Khadka is leading a quiet resistance. As she travels around Nepal, listening to stories of wartime rape survivors, and creating a unified voice for justice, she knows that she’s poking a hornet’s nest. Nepal’s leaders want to bury the shameful truth of wartime rape. As the only public face of survivors, Devi has decided that she can no longer stay silent. But her hip-hop-loving teenage daughter just wants her to be a mum.
In 1997, seventeen-year-old Devi, was arrested, accused of being a rebel, tortured, and raped in custody. A civil war had just begun. Rebel leaders revealed her as a rape ‘victim’. Tagged with this shameful taboo, Devi battled depression, social ostracism, joined the rebel frontlines, and rose through the ranks, even serving as a member of the parliament when the war ended.
Shot as an immersive verité, the film travels with Devi, as she consolidates the voices of survivors. As Devi confronts her former lawyer and her counselor, the film dives into deeply intimate and vulnerable moments. Through her diary, supported by archives and sweeping images, Devi reconstructs history erased to rewrite her new destiny.
[logline] => Devi, a former guerrilla fighter who survived wartime rape, decides to fight for justice.
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Devi
Devi, a former guerrilla fighter who survived wartime rape, decides to fight for justice.
Learn more
Array
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[ID] => 478
[title] => Most Dangerous Women: Women of the West
[text] => Throughout history, women changemakers have often been labeled “dangerous” and “subversive,” yet their vision has proved prophetic. Most Dangerous Women features the often untold and little-known stories and voices of “dangerous women” fighting for equality, social justice, and peace in their communities and on a global stage. It invites viewers to discover and document women in their own families, communities, and regions working to create a more equitable, socially just, and peaceful world.
Women who were once labeled “dangerous” often shine heroic today. In the 1920s, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover characterized Jane Addams as "the most dangerous woman in America." Dangerous because of her pacifism, her challenges to the status quo, her work with immigrants and the poor. Across generations, women such as Mary McLeod Bethune, Jeannette Rankin, Coretta Scott King, Shirley Chisholm, and thousands of less well-known women raised their voices and worked to create a more just and equitable world. Those who dared to enter the public sphere were mocked, abused, and imprisoned. In many circumstances, powerful women still are. Most Dangerous Women presents the stories of women of the past along with compelling narrations from contemporary dangerous women who tell of their own journeys and their deepest desires for future generations.
Most Dangerous Women was inspired by a life changing readers’ theater play of the same name, which focuses on more than 100 years of women’s peace activism. When working with this play over the decades it has been performed, we discovered that actors and audience members always asked the same questions: “Why don’t I know about these women? Why weren’t their stories taught to me or shared?” Actors reported being transformed as they embodied the historic characters. We similarly hoped to encourage viewers to find solidarity and inspiration in the women whose stories we presented, opening an intergenerational dialogue that links, past, present, and future.
The pilot episode focuses on the American West, because in 1869 Wyoming became the first government in the world to recognize women’s right to vote and to hold public office. Women of Wyoming Territory boldly grasped this opportunity, winning elections as justices of the peace, legislators, and other offices. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, women’s rights were maintained, and Wyoming became known as the Equality State. Other Western territories and states followed in recognizing women’s right to vote and hold public office. Women’s newly won visibility established them as effective leaders and role models, shaping the West and concurrently fueling the quest for national women’s suffrage, which came fifty years after Wyoming’s.
This episode features interviews with Wyoming women legislators at the February 2020 legislative session in Cheyenne, including Andi Clifford, a member of the Wind River Arapaho who represented Wyoming’s District 33. It also features faculty and students from the University of Wyoming, and academic and student leaders at the 2019 National Women’s Studies Annual Conference (NWSA) in San Francisco. “This Is Our Time,” the theme of the film, is taken from the interview in the film with singer and activist Holly Near, who comes from California, and whose music is also featured. All of these women reflect on dangerous women in their own lives, the complexities of women’s activism, historic and contemporary initiatives and coalitions, and their hopes for the future.
We intended to do follow-up interviews, but the pandemic made this impossible. We then realized we had in hand the elements of a film that could serve as a realistic model for new storytellers to learn to locate, research, reclaim, authentically document, and share the stories they discover, with minimal production elements and at a relatively low cost. We finished the film in 2022 and created a toolkit with additional resources, discussion questions, and guidance for discovering and documenting past, present, and future dangerous women in every community. We began to show it to community groups, classes, and in public screenings in several states. At the initial screening in Milwaukee, to an SRO crowd on a wintry night, audience members commented that the stories in the film inspired them to “go out and do… because we have to have hope.” At the screening on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, one of the audience members said that the film reminded her of something her grandmother said: “You’re not coming behind me, you’re going ahead of me. You’re going to walk past me.”
This episode was planned as the pilot in a series that would focus on different regions of the United States and perhaps the world. The director, Janet Fitch of Milwaukee’s New Moon Productions, died in December 2023, as she was beginning work on the next episode. This film thus serves as the final product of her decades-long career as a feminist filmmaker.
[logline] => A documentary short featuring women changemakers working to create a more just world. In the film, contemporary leaders in the U.S. West reflect on the early legacy of visible women in the region, as well as the challenges they and their peers face today, and their hopes for the future.
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[alt] => A collage of different women led protests. At the top reads "Most Dangerous Women" in white letters.
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Most Dangerous Women: Women of the West
A documentary short featuring women changemakers working to create a more just world. In the film, contemporary leaders in the U.S. West reflect on the early legacy of visible women in the region, as well as the challenges they and their peers face today, and their hopes for the future.
Learn more
Array
(
[ID] => 464
[title] => 999: The Extraordinary Young Women on the First Official Transport to Auschwitz
[text] => Now a book and a movie!
A bright 16-year-old with big dreams, elfin faced, Edith Grosman, her sister, Leah, and 999 other innocent young women reported for national service duty and ended up in Auschwitz.
“There was nothing there when we arrived. It was an empty place!”
Why take girls? If you want to destroy a race of people annihilate fertile, young women. Archival footage and photographs of rare documents reveal: a camp regime of starvation—the equivalent of one tin of cat food per day, per girl; the Slovak government’s payment to the Nazis of $200.00 per girl.
Juxtaposing B&W footage with color, children tell their mothers’ stories: Marta was sterilized by Dr. Mengele, her daughter was adopted. Ill with Typhus, Ida’s friends hid her in mounds of clothes. The beautiful Helena Citronova had an affair with SS Franz Wunsch. Postcards sent to and from Birkenau reveal a dramatic correspondence that ends abruptly. On Chanukah 1942, 10,000 women were taken to the gas, Edith’s sister, Leah, was one. Afterwards “the camp was empty.”
“We weren’t even adults. We were teenagers, young enough to throw temper tantrums, now we were seeing girls our age dying.”
Now 94, Edith asks, “Why do intelligent people hate? War serves no one.”
It takes a minion of ten men to say Kaddish; our film ends with women saying Kaddish in the very place where Edith’s sister and thousands of other girls, died. “I will do anything to remember the girls.”
Will you?
[logline] => “66% of millennials cannot say what Auschwitz was” even fewer know that the first Jewish transport to Auschwitz was 999 teenage girls and young women. Discover the truth behind this historical #MeToo moment and meet three survivors of the first transport, who are in their 90s, and their families.
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)
999: The Extraordinary Young Women on the First Official Transport to Auschwitz
“66% of millennials cannot say what Auschwitz was” even fewer know that the first Jewish transport to Auschwitz was 999 teenage girls and young women. Discover the truth behind this historical #MeToo moment and meet three survivors of the first transport, who are in their 90s, and their families.
Learn more
Array
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[ID] => 136509
[title] => Familiar Touch
[text] => Collaborating with a real assisted living facility as our primary location and with their residents as supporting cast and crew, we will engage hybrid documentary approaches to this narrative feature's production to shape our film through intergenerational collaboration with older adults.
Before production, Sarah will facilitate an introduction to filmmaking workshop for the residents. This workshop will support and encourage the creative expression of the residents hosting us as visitors in their home while allowing them an opportunity to get to know and become comfortable with our crew. Each department head will facilitate one session of the workshop during prep so that the residents learn about each facet of filmmaking. The workshop will culminate in filming short hybrid scenes of their daily life at the assisted living facility.
During production, we will invite these residents to join us as both our cast, as supporting characters and background, and our crew, as consultants in the production design, costumes, and HMU departments. The integration of this creative aging workshop throughout our production process will ground both our collaborative ethics, realism, as well as the anti-ageist politics of our film.
[logline] => Familiar Touch is a coming of (old) age film. It follows an octogenarian woman’s transition to life in assisted living as she contends with her conflicting desires and self-narratives amidst her shifting age identity and memory.
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[link] => https://www.wmm.com/sponsored-project/familiar-touch
)
Familiar Touch
Familiar Touch is a coming of (old) age film. It follows an octogenarian woman’s transition to life in assisted living as she contends with her conflicting desires and self-narratives amidst her shifting age identity and memory.
Learn more
Array
(
[ID] => 127139
[title] => Coexistence, My Ass!
[text] => COEXISTENCE, MY ASS! follows activist-comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi as she creates a comedy show by the same name. Shot over five tumultuous years, the film traces Noam’s personal, professional and political journey in tandem with the region’s steady deterioration. Raised in a bilingual Israeli-Palestinian village — the only intentionally integrated community in the country — Noam grows disillusioned with traditional peace activism. She pivots to stand-up and quickly attracts attention across the Middle East. But as her star rises, everything around her falls apart. With biting satire, Noam pushes her audiences to face difficult truths that aren't always funny but do remind us that another reality is possible.
[logline] => Noam Shuster Eliassi grew up the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process before making a hard pivot to stand-up comedy and political satire. But as the region sinks deeper into devastating violence, she must meet the moment by challenging people with hard truths that are no laughing matter.
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[alt] => Noam on stage with a mic in her hand, a light shining on her
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)
Coexistence, My Ass!
Noam Shuster Eliassi grew up the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process before making a hard pivot to stand-up comedy and political satire. But as the region sinks deeper into devastating violence, she must meet the moment by challenging people with hard truths that are no laughing matter.
Learn more
Array
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[ID] => 145854
[title] => MAILIN
[text] => On March 9th 2021, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mailin loses the trial, and the priest that abused her for 15 years is set free. Her world is crumbling. Yet in spite of the wreckage, she goes back home, and so that her daughter Ona can fall asleep, she tells her a bedtime story. A surreal journey thus begins, that in its juggling with reality, reveals to be a metaphor of Mailin's childhood.
And so, the protagonist assumes the quest of recovering the memory of her past, by going through her family recordings. Just like these cassettes are full of glitches and ghostly images that break and freeze, so is her memory, shattered by trauma. By revisiting her childhood recordings, Mailin wonders how could her mother not see that she was suffering?
By scrutinizing the material, Mailin comes to realize the sadness in Monica's eyes. The protagonist then admits that she, as well, is going through depression, and that here lies her biggest fear: If her memory tricked so terribly that it could erase an entire portion of her life, might it eventually erase her daughter too?
Through a collage in movement, the film interweaves with the bedtime story, the trial that unfolds and the family recordings now captured by Ona. Between cut-out animations, VHS material, and cell phone recordings, a mother and a daughter try to reach one another, yet how can so many years of unspoken words be spoken? How to heal a family so deeply wounded?
[logline] => 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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[link] => https://www.wmm.com/sponsored-project/mailin
)
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.
Learn more
Array
(
[ID] => 163885
[title] => Flood
[text] => In her first feature film, Katy Scoggin returns to her childhood home to reconnect to her religious father. He has spent decades refuting the theory of evolution, while she has embraced science since her college days.
Katy encounters her father at a turning point: her sister’s family is moving, and her parents plan to follow. The household goes into upheaval with the packing of home videos, class notes, and old Bibles. Through these relics, Katy sees how all of her family members' beliefs have changed--except for her father's.
Thus a rift widens, and a dramatic question emerges: How do you stick together as a family if your beliefs have grown worlds apart?
[logline] => Katy returns to her childhood home to attempt to reconnect to her evangelical father, years after leaving the Christian faith. What could possibly go wrong?
[image] =>
[link] => https://www.wmm.com/sponsored-project/flood
)
Flood
Katy returns to her childhood home to attempt to reconnect to her evangelical father, years after leaving the Christian faith. What could possibly go wrong?
Learn more
Array
(
[ID] => 165028
[title] => The Last Guardian
[text] => This cinematic short will spotlight a singular person’s lifelong connection to and fight for one of the world’s most complex habitats: A bay that divides the nation's most populous city on one side and its busiest international airport on the other. Stuck in between is an incredibly rich but poorly understood ecosystem, as well as some of the region's only recreational swimming, fishing and surfing areas. This is a deeply personal narrative, told with authenticity through the eyes of our protagonist, with global implications.
THE LAST GUARDIAN is a story of simple pleasures and true, salt-of-earth environmental stewardship: The act of quietly observing the world outside your backyard and — perhaps foolishly — trying to get others to give a damn, too. Far from the noise of corporate sustainability buzzwords and greenwashing campaigns, the world within this quietly observed portrait will capture the dignity and loneliness of a man who’s dedicated his life to a place he alone cannot save. But one that is clearly worth fighting for.
[logline] => An 86-year-old man living alone on a sinking island at the edge of New York City is the first and possibly last guardian of one of the world’s most critical waterways.
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)
The Last Guardian
An 86-year-old man living alone on a sinking island at the edge of New York City is the first and possibly last guardian of one of the world’s most critical waterways.
Learn more
Array
(
[ID] => 163970
[title] => Rooting Souls
[text] => Despite growing up far from high peaks, in suburban New Jersey, Zivia's buoyant energy and tenacity for pushing limits led them from gymnastics competitions to the enigmatic world of mountaineering. Today, Zivia strives to expand the scarce collective of Black womxn alpinists seeking to explore the depths of their abilities in the mountains. As Black womxn, acquiring the resources and support to pursue alpinism is challenging. The mentorship and skills required for technical mountain ascents remains largely inaccessible beyond Eurocentric, male-dominated spaces. This determination toward change takes root as Zivia invites a team of fellow outdoor educators, and mentors turned friends, Rosemary Saal and Sof Petros to pursue an unprecedented summit on Mt. Kenya. By climbing independently through the most complex elements of the ascent, Zivia, Sof, and Rosemary are redefining “why” and “who” attempts expeditions at this caliber.
On this journey, team members will explore place and belonging within the African diaspora. As a Kenyan-American, this expedition is an opportunity for Zivia to immerse, celebrate, and share her cultures across continents.
The momentum of ROOTING SOULS is embedded in the pursuit of the summit of Mt. Kenya, yet, the story is character-driven. Rare access and self-filmed footage from the storytellers, offers intimate perspectives into the lives of Zivia, Sof, and Rosemary. ROOTING SOULS is an opportunity to encounter the intersections of mountaineering and the experiences of Black womxn. Documenting this team challenges the burdens of misogynoir, while simultaneously expanding and preserving these critical perspectives for future generations.
[logline] => 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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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.
Learn more