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
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.
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As Slow As Possible
From the unhurried movements of Icelandic glaciers to a 639 year-long musical performance in Germany, stories of geological, human, and cosmic time intersect in a cinematic exploration of time and timelessness.
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Tip/Alli
In 1977, the outing of science fiction author James Tiptree, Jr. (as Alice B. Sheldon) shook the world’s sense of genre fiction as a male domain. Fifty years later, TIP/ALLI reveals the intricate life of expansive gender that produced some of the 20th century’s most celebrated speculations.
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Good Fire
After more than one hundred years of fire suppression, Yurok people are returning Indigenous fire medicine to the land in order to heal the world.
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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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The Gender Project
What defines biological sex — science or society? Through immersion in the lives of people who defy simplistic gender labels, The Gender Project uses bold cinematic language to confront the dichotomy of gender, exploding binary myths with scientific, historical, and cultural revelations.
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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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Jennifer, 42
Based on a real case, JENNIFER, 42 tells the harrowing true story of the life and murder of Jennifer Magnano. Voiced by her three children, and told through animation, JENNIFER, 42 reveals the true nature of domestic violence and a woman's life and death battle for freedom.
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Hyde Park
Bound by a legacy of toxic soil and systemic neglect, three families in a historic Black neighborhood in Augusta, Georgia, wage a decades-long battle against seven industrial giants to survive. Through their unrelenting pursuit and activism, they navigate a grueling seven-year relocation to reclaim the health and dignity they deserve.
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Next Generation Sex
Do kids have a basic right to learn about their own bodies and sexuality? A local backlash to sex ed sparks a national firestorm.
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Life After
A gripping personal investigation that exposes the tangled web of moral dilemmas and profit motives surrounding assisted dying. Disabled filmmaker Reid Davenport uncovers shocking abuses of power as he amplifies the voices of the disability community and raises the alarm about the "right to die."
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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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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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SEEDS
SEEDS is an ethnographic portrait of a centennial African-American farm in Thomasville, Georgia. Using lyrical black and white imagery this meditative film examines the decline of generational black farmers and the significance of owning land.
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The Martha Mitchell Effect
She was once as famous as Jackie O. And then she tried to take down a President. Martha Mitchell was the unlikeliest of whistleblowers: a Republican cabinet wife who was discredited by the Nixon Administration in 1972 to keep her quiet. Until now.
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*holds you tight*
A lonely night watchman develops a relationship with an AI chatbot, transforming his worldview and challenging his perception of identity and reality.
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Karuara, People of the River
A film about spiritual beings that live in the Amazons’ rivers, and an indigenous community’s struggle to save these sacred water guardians.
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