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
Will They Ever Come Back?
Driving down a long Colombian road, Angela and her sister enter the indigenous land where their father, an Afro-descendant farmer, was forcibly disappeared years ago. In a dream, he asks to be found. The journey confronts them with mysticism and a violated community that resists.
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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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ARTIFACTS
The life of a successful yet isolated photographer changes as she learns how to cope with a rare visual disease.
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Cosmic Moose and Grizzly Bears Ville
Peter Valentine, diagnosed schizophrenic and unmedicated all his life, fought MIT while they demolished his neighborhood to create a new development- University Park. After 7 years in court with MIT, they gifted Peter the apartment building he lived in, moving it to another street.
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Fire Tender
Yurok Tribal Members return fire to the land toward cultural and ecological healing.
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the bomb
the bomb is a critically acclaimed immersive film, music, and art installation that puts viewers in the center of the story of nuclear weapons. It explores their immense power, their perverse allure, and the inherent danger at the very heart of them. An installation version of the bomb is currently touring museums, galleries, film festivals, and academic institutions.
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THE COST
The truth about Alice Munro emerged only after her death. For her daughter Andrea, the story is not about legacy or outrage, but about what happens when everyone knows and nothing changes.
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The Road to Independence (Working Title)
Seeking to give a nuanced and humanized view of the Vietnam-American war and its complex reverberations, this documentary explores the perspective of Vietnamese youth and Communist veterans as they discuss the past and their dreams for Vietnam's future.
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This Way Out
'This Way Out' is a feature documentary following a group of previously incarcerated seniors as they fight for reforms to the parole boards of New York. This character-driven documentary explores the concepts of punishment, redemption, and what it means to heal.
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TURBULENCE
How do we overcome the heartbreaks, sorrows and traumas we endure or witness, and come out whole?
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Wittig, Yes!
More than 50 years ago, Monique Wittig, acclaimed writer, theorist, and lesbian feminist icon, dared to envision a world beyond gender. Told by her lifelong partner Sande Zeig, Wittig, Yes! unveils the synthesis of Wittig's public and private personas, tracing the origins of her groundbreaking theories.
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May It Be A Girl
MAY IT BE A GIRL is a film about the personal search for the identity of Kazakh women, who were named, according to an ancient tradition, by their parent’s wishes for them to be born as a son.
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Ex Libris, A Life in Bookplates
EX LIBRIS is an animated documentary film tracing the intimate, intricate world my grandfather created and lost in Vienna between the two world wars, and the exploding universe he reflected in his diaries.
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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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Here, the Silence is Heard
Gabriela's family escaped the Chilean dictatorship when her grandfather's life was in serious danger. 50 years later, Gabriela, who has inherited the trauma despite her being raised in Spain, returns to reopen the doors of the home they left behind.
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I AM NOT A SPY
I AM NOT A SPY is a first-person documentary exploring the Russian electoral process under Putin’s regime. A Russian-American filmmaker gains access to her local polling station during multiple elections to investigate their validity and understand the mindsets of voters as Russia becomes increasingly authoritarian and invades Ukraine.
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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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Unlocked aka Kings Park: Stories from an American Mental Institution
"Unlocked" is a groundbreaking digital learning site created for people going into healthcare and professionals already working in the field. Building on the success of the "Kings Park" documentary, "Unlocked" features a wealth of personal stories with individuals who have experienced the U.S. mental healthcare system firsthand.
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