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
DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE
With innovative dark humor, DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE examines how the promise of an American multiracial democracy faces a renewed backlash, culminating in the very real fears of an actual authoritarian takeover.
Learn more
As Prescribed
“Benzo warriors” fight a grassroots battle to save others from the devastating consequences of the little pill they took as prescribed.
Learn more
Exit Here
Exit Here embeds with one London funeral home guiding bereaved families through grief, and the terminally ill through their last days, as they plan final farewells. Interweaving stories of love and loss that build to bespoke celebrations of life, this honest exploration of death shows us how to live.
Learn more
Little Sallie Walker
How did generations of Black women and girls across America, including the film's director, find themselves fighting for joy and healing? LITTLE SALLIE WALKER, an intimate documentary, explores how their precious worlds of play collide with a unique set of traumas and struggles from both the past and present.
Learn more
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.
Learn more
MAILIN
Mailin tells her daughter a bedtime story, a metaphor unfolding the protagonists’ search to recover the memory of her past. Through a collage of archive and childhood drawings, emerges the story of a girl, who for 15 years suffered the abuses of a priest that Justice has just set free.
Learn more
Barbara Forever
BARBARA FOREVER is an exclusive look at the iconic life, work, & legacy of pioneering lesbian experimental filmmaker, Barbara Hammer, tracing her prolific canon alongside never-before-seen documentations of her life and body, to reveal Hammer's unconventional attempts to live on forever.
Learn more
KILLFACE
KILLFACE (USA, 16 min) is a sensory, sound-centric meditation on female strength, stamina, and struggle through the visual metaphor of a female fighter.
Learn more
No Money No Honey
Revisiting memories captured on old VHS tapes, Máxima, an Argentine sex worker, longs for her golden years in Miami with friends while confronting the ghosts of a childhood scarred by neglect and abuse. As she reconciles with her past, she finds strength in the needs of her trans community.
Learn more
Ana Mendieta: Rebel by Nature
An intimate look at artist, Ana Mendieta, whose exile from her homeland Cuba inspired her pioneering art in the landscape. Family and friends speak out after more than 30 years, interwoven with newly discovered audio of the artist alongside her visually captivating Super 8 films.
Learn more
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.
Learn more
Big Rock Burning
A gripping documentary exploring the resilient spirit of Malibu's Big Rock community as they rebuild from the ashes of the devastating Palisades Fire, one of America's worst wildfires.
Learn more
Fencing for the Edge
FENCING FOR THE EDGE follows the emotional and physical journeys of two girls’ teams as they compete in the world’s largest high school fencing league.
Learn more
Sterilized
Sterilized follows the journeys of young women who have made a radical decision - to remove their tubes so they can never have children. The film explores autonomy, fear, and who gets to decide what a woman’s life should look like.
Learn more
Wisdom Gone Wild
WISDOM GONE WILD is an intimate documentary presenting a new look at dementia and caregiving. Rather than a portrait of loss, dementia is seen as a wisdom that has “gone wild.”
Learn more
Standing Above the Clouds
When the massive Thirty Meter Telescope is proposed to be built on Mauna Kea, an uprising of kiaʻi (protectors) in Hawaiʻi and around the world dedicate their lives to protecting the sacred mountain from destruction. Through the lens of mothers and daughters in three Native Hawaiian families, Standing Above the Clouds explores intergenerational healing and the impacts of safeguarding cultural traditions.
Learn more
The In Between
The in Between is a portrait of a unique community that follows the exceptional but very normal lives of the citizens of the sister cities of Eagle Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras, Coahuila along the U.S. / Mexico border, offering an intimate look into the heart of Mexican-American identity.
Learn more
Sitting Still
Artist, scholar, architect, landscape architect, professor, author, urban visionary, and unparalleled designer of cities, Laurie Olin is a true Renaissance man who, along with world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, takes us on a visual, eye-opening journey through natural and built environments, revealing the connective tissue for creating healthy and humane societies.
Learn more