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 Kids Are Not Alright
The Kids Are Not Alright is an intimate portrait of trauma following three families’ journeys as they work to shed light on the devastating impacts of the Troubled Teen Industry, pursue healing in the absence of justice, and fight to hold abusers accountable.
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Anne Sexton:
Tell Me Your Answer True
She loved life and yearned for death. Anne Sexton, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, ‘one of the most important American poets of her generation’ was encouraged to write as an antidote to her open struggle with social convention, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. For the first time, a film follows the paths of this fascinating woman poet.
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Work While You Have the Light
Work While You Have the Light is a feature documentary by a multi-generational directing team that examines professional women who are over seventy-years-old and still working.
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Terracotta Daughters
Terracotta Daughters is a feature-length documentary following eight Chinese girls from 2015 to 2030, whose portraits inspired Prune Nourry’s 2012 art installation of 108 sculptures modeled on the Terracotta Army of Xian. At once intimate and political, the film captures their journey from childhood to adulthood.
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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.
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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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Tell Me No Lies: The Real John Pilger
Tell Me No Lies will tell the inside story of John Pilger, Australia’s most famous journalist.
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Arrest The Midwife
The shocking arrest of midwives in a rural healthcare desert leaves a community stranded, and spurs the emergence of a very unlikely group of fierce political activists – Amish and Mennonite women who break with their traditions to stand up and speak out for women’s reproductive rights.
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The Island in Me
Homecoming follows two women Johnny Frisbie and Amelia Borofsky who, after decades away, return to their beloved childhood atoll of Pukapuka in the South Pacific. The film reveals a unique story of love, survival and indigenous resiliency in the midst of rising tides and migration.
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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 Dreamer's Daughter (working title)
As her family travels America in an RV, teenage Leilani is torn between her father’s dream of freedom and her desire for a normal teenage life.
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The Mask That Grins And Lies
The Mask that Grins and Lies is a meditative documentary feature that uncovers the intergenerational silence shrouding black women’s mental illness.
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Something Yellow
When Ani’s mother urges her to turn off the GPS, familiar Los Angeles streets fracture into surreal landscapes of memory and myth. Ani must find her way through them — only to realize she has to redefine home.
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AKA Doris Wishman
In a world dominated by male filmmakers, delve into the enigmatic journey of a trailblazing American woman who redefined cinema through her groundbreaking contributions to the realm of sexploitation films.
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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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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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