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
Sleep Training
When a new parent’s postpartum depression devolves into frightening hallucinations, an escape from motherhood is necessary to stay sane –but is abandoning the baby the only way out?
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Miles to Go Before She Sleeps
YANG, an idealistic schoolteacher, is on a mission to stop the slaughtering of dogs in provinces where canine consumption is glorified as a cultural tradition. While a contentious animal protection law makes its way through the courts, she investigates with steely determination why countless pets are disappearing from their homes.
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The Day Iceland Stood Still
When 90% of Iceland’s women walked off the job and out of their homes one morning in 1975 the country came to a standstill. Unexpectedly funny and told for the first time, this is the true story of one day that catapulted Iceland to the world’s superpower of gender equality.
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Peace For Nina
Peace for Nina follows the journey of a Ukrainian mother as she seeks justice for the unlawful killing of her son by a Russian mercenary. A survivor’s tale of grief, courage and hope.
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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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Call Me Dancer
When a hip-hop dancer accidentally walks into a ballet class in Mumbai, his world opens up and a passion is born. The tough ballet master recognizes his talent and dares him to fulfill his dreams of dancing professionally - giving him the courage to defy family, culture and poverty.
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Aftermath
AFTERMATH revisits the wrenching, highly-publicized hate crime documented in Emmy-nominated THE BRANDON TEENA STORY, 25 years later. Through the eyes of a community grappling with the impact of Brandon’s life and death, the film explores loss, growth and life for LGBTQ individuals in Heartland America.
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A Photographic Memory
A daughter attempts to piece together a portrait of her mother, a daring journalist, and a woman she never knew. Uncovering the vast archive Sheila Turner-Seed produced, including lost interviews with iconic photographers, the film explores memory, legacy and stories left untold.
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Kokusekihou (working title)
A Japanese-born woman lost her Japanese citizenship after naturalizing in the United States. Stranded in Japan during the COVID-19 border closures, she finds herself living in legal limbo and launches a constitutional challenge against Japan’s nationality law and its single-citizenship principle.
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Postmortem
POSTMORTEM, a hybrid documentary film, is a boundary-pushing, family crime drama about an abused girl who didn’t tell her childhood secret—and the woman she becomes, who does.
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I Brought You Into This World
"I Brought You Into This World" is an intimate, character-driven documentary following three pregnant Black individuals of varying gender identities as they navigate pregnancy in a post-Roe America. The film exposes the profound impact of political and social conditions on maternal healthcare, revealing deep racial and gender disparities.
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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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Jamaica Kincaid: Liberating the Daffodil (working title)
This riveting portrait of writer Jamaica Kincaid traces her life from growing up in colonial Antigua, to working as an au pair in Scarsdale, N.Y. as a teenager, to becoming a staff writer for The New Yorker at age 26.
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SORORITY STORY
SORORITY STORY tells the unexamined story of racial discrimination in one of the largest and most exclusive private clubs in America: white college sororities.
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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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INDÍGENA
To fulfill her mother’s dying wish, a filmmaker retraces her mother’s work as an activist and journalist during the Red Power Movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, bringing to light 500 years of Taino resistance and igniting her own journey of reclamation.
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