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
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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This Year
Maxine, a precocious sixteen-year-old in Wheeling, West Virginia, feels safe and loved in the town she calls home. But as anti-trans policies threaten her healthcare, her mother pushes to leave, forcing the family to confront what home, safety, and belonging really mean.
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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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The Soldier's Journey
What does it take for Helena, a filmmaker to pick up a weapon in the most ruthless war the world has experienced since World War II and still try not to lose hope in humanity and the future?
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YOU DESERVE TO DIE: The Story of Gamergate
YOU DESERVE TO DIE is the bizarre true story of how a group of misogynistic "Gamers" wrote the playbook for weaponizing social media as told by those they relentlessly targeted.
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Familiar Touch
Familiar Touch is a coming of (old) age film. It follows an octogenarian woman’s transition to life in assisted living as she contends with her conflicting desires and self-narratives amidst her shifting age identity and memory.
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ithaka
This film is a project of Documentary Australia and is sponsored by Women Make Movies as part of our ongoing partnership in support of independent filmmakers.
The campaign to free Julian Assange takes on intimate dimensions in this documentary portrait of an father's fight to save his son.
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Adios Amor - The Search for Maria Moreno
The discovery of lost photographs sparks the search for a hero that history forgot—Maria Moreno, a migrant mother who sacrificed everything but her twelve kids for farmworker justice. The first female farmworker in the U.S. hired as a union organizer, Maria’s story was silenced and her legacy buried—until now.
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Grassland
Exploring the failures of the criminal justice system from a unique angle, GRASSLAND follows a young Latino boy who puts his single mother's illegal marijuana business at risk when he befriends the new neighbors.
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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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Aftermath
AFTERMATH revisits the wrenching, highly-publicized hate crime documented in Emmy-nominated THE BRANDON TEENA STORY, 25 years later. Through the eyes of a community grappling with the impact of Brandon’s life and death, the film explores loss, growth and life for LGBTQ individuals in Heartland America.
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Libertad (Working Title)
Alejandra, an Indigenous, transgender woman from Oaxaca, Mexico prepares to visit her hometown to reunite with her mother for the first time after 28 years in the United States. Alejandra's homecoming journey is explored through the multiple communities she identifies with as she calls for solidarity and mutual liberation.
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The Hammer
Disabling a military aircraft with a hammer is madness. Doing it twice is divine.
This film is a project of Documentary Australia and is sponsored by Women Make Movies as part of our ongoing partnership in support of independent filmmakers.
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A Place of Absence
Decades after the disappearance of her uncle during Argentina’s dictatorship, filmmaker Marialuisa Ernst joins the Caravan of Mothers, a group of Central American women traveling the migrant trail in search of loved ones who have disappeared trying to reach the US.
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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.
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Ever and the sharks
A female leading marine biologist and a teenage boy from a disadvantaged fishermen community in northern Peru will embark on a quest to tag whale sharks in a scientific discovery that aims to save the species (and the boy’s future).
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I am Pippi
An expedition into the feminist icon, Pippi Longstocking, told through the people portraying her across the world.
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Our Body Electric
OUR BODY ELECTRIC follows three elite women bodybuilders competing to be Ms. Olympia, the most coveted muscle show title. Offering a behind-the-scenes look at women sculpting themselves into anatomical works of art, this feature-length film is both a testament to the power of athletics and an intimate portrait of women defying societal expectations.
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