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
Qatar Stars
Qatar Stars presents a four-year story of girlhood in all its joys and growing pains, through intimate access to a multinational rhythmic gymnastics school in Doha Qatar, led by a former Russian gymnast.
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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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The Endless Frontier
THE ENDLESS FRONTIER follows four passionate researchers hunting for cures and protecting the planet from disaster, when they unexpectedly find themselves on the frontlines in the fight for the future of science itself.
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And Then One Day…
When a novel reveals her Jewish cattle-trading family didn’t leave Germany by choice but by coercion, Carole travels to her family’s town. There, she collaborates with high school students, uncovering in local archives how brutality takes hold, law by law, echoing patterns that are unfolding again in our own time.
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Rubbish: The Queer Kingdom of Leilah Babirye
The decade-long story of a queer artist-activist from Uganda transforming discarded rubbish into visions of liberation.
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A Woman on the Outside
After watching nearly every man in her life disappear into prison, Kristal Bush channels her struggle into reuniting other Philadelphia families divided by incarceration. But when her father and brother come home after decades behind bars, she confronts the greatest challenge yet—can she unite her own family without losing herself?
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Untitled Rajie Cook documentary
Rajie Cook designed the visual symbols used to navigate our world, but had to find his own way through his Palestinian identity. As his pioneering designs achieved worldwide acclaim, his visual art confronted the often-ignored suffering of his lineage. Cook's life journey was the arc of a first generation American
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PERSIS
PERSIS is a documentary film exploring the legacy of the unheralded model-turned-actor Persis Khambatta.
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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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In Balanchine's Classroom
Balanchine’s former dancers reveal startling new facets of the legendary choreographer as they open the door to his private classroom - his laboratory, set against their present-day efforts to keep his legacy alive.
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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.
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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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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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As Prescribed
“Benzo warriors” fight a grassroots battle to save others from the devastating consequences of the little pill they took as prescribed.
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Flashing
How women around the world experience and address menopause - a critical and understudied realm of women's sexual health and reproduction.
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ISKRA (Spark!)
Before Silicon Valley, Apple and Google, before Microsoft and Bill Gates, there was Yugoslavia and ISKRA. Overlooked and underrated, the non-aligned Yugoslav tech giant allowed East to connect with West. It was pioneering and avant-garde. Then... it suddenly disappeared.
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Blind AF
A blind female Paralympic champion and world-record holder sets out to become the first blind person to ride a single, non-tandem, bike across the US, while confronting painful truths about her past that she’s spent a lifetime trying to outrun. Blind AF is about trauma, transcendence and power of self-belief.
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