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
Holloway
Six women return to the abandoned Holloway Prison to participate in a women’s circle. Sharing some of the most intimate experiences of their lives, they unravel what led each of them to prison, building an eye-opening portrait of repeatedly failing systems, and discovering their extraordinary capacity to heal through sisterhood.
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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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Pacific Mother
Having fought hard to get the birth she dreamed of, freediver Sachiko Fukumoto connects with ocean women battling for a world where all people are supported in their birth choices.
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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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4 AM (working title)
A New York artist’s desperate life is shattered and rebuilt in a raw, cinematic odyssey, fusing avant-garde dance, verité documentary, and magical realism into a pulsing testament to the city’s creative soul.
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Tantura: UnEarthed (formerly Road to Tantura)
For nearly two decades, a Palestinian-American filmmaker follows the trail of her father’s silence into the heart of a buried coastal village—uncovering a contested massacre, a family’s exile, and the quiet machinery of historical erasure.
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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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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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Nuns vs. The Vatican
A former nun breaks her silence to expose the Church’s most celebrated priest and a system built to protect power at any cost.
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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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Hands On
Two determined women engage in an extraordinary endurance contest to win a car by keeping their hands on it the longest. As years pass, their unwavering resolve leads to an unexpected bond.
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Another Light on the Road: Robert Frank & June Leaf's Canadian Home
Two years after the passing of photographer Robert Frank, artist June Leaf returns to Nova Scotia to explore the special relationship they had to their adopted Canadian home of fifty years.
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1946: THE MISTRANSLATION THAT SHIFTED CULTURE
A journey which unveils the mystery of how theology, history, culture, and politics led to a Biblical mistranslation, the man who tried to stop it, and the impassioned academic crusade of the LGBTQIA+ Christian community-driven to discover the truth.
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Taking Venice
TAKING VENICE uncovers the true story behind rumors that the U.S. government and a team of high-placed insiders rigged the 1964 Venice Biennale – the Olympics of art – so their chosen artist, Robert Rauschenberg, could win the Grand Prize.
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The Archives
The Archives tells the story of Holocaust archivists, quiet warriors who preserve and uncover the truth of history. Their domains are the archives, hallowed places of stored history that are the searching grounds for the victims’ descendants, family archivists excavating the trauma of the past to build a better future.
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The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony
In a place where girls and sport rarely mix, THE GYMNASTS OF FISHERMAN COLONY is a coming-of-age documentary where joy, ambition, and quiet rebellion take root as three teenage girls carve out space for themselves, one somersault at a time.
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She's The Joint: The Story of MC SHA-ROCK
MC SHA-ROCK is the Bayard Rustin of rap, both of whom played crucial and instrumental roles in shaping historic and global movements. Roles that went largely unknown and were often credited to other people.
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Ask Joan
Ask Joan, follows the life and work of Joan Price, an 82-year-old sex-positive author and sex advice columnist, who is on a mission to help all seniors – but especially older women – fight society’s ageism to grab all the pleasure they can.
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