Since its inception, the Production Assistance Program has assisted in the completion of hundreds of projects, including Oscar-winning documentary CITIZENFOUR by Laura Poitras, Oscar nominee STRONG ISLAND by Yance Ford, and Sandi Tan’s SHIRKERS, which won the World Cinema Documentary Competition Award for Best Directing at Sundance in 2018. In the last 5 years, WMM’s PA Program has helped 136 films reach completion and assisted filmmakers in raising more than $28,000,000 from government, foundation, corporate or individual, and crowd-funded sources.
Below you can browse, learn more about, and support select films fiscally sponsored through our Production Assistance Program. You can take part in helping women’s visions reach the screen by making a tax-deductible donation to any of the projects featured here. With your help, we can continue to see advancements in feminist filmmaking every day. Hopefully, with our collective efforts to support these artists, more opportunities and celebrated accomplishments will continue to flourish.
FIND PROJECTS AND FILMMAKERS TO SUPPORT
Warrior Women
“Warrior Women” is the story of mothers and daughters fighting for indigenous rights in the American Indian Movement of the 1970s. The film unveils not only a female perspective of history, but also examines the impact political struggles have on the children who bear witness.
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The Rest I Make Up
Maria Irene Fornes is one of America's greatest playwrights and most influential teachers. When she stops writing due to dementia, a friendship with a young writer reignites her visionary creative spirit, triggering a film collaboration that picks up where the pen left off.
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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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A Place of Absence
A Place of Absence follows filmmaker Marialuisa Ernst’s search to find meaning and connection with Anita and Leticia, two Central American women traveling to Mexico as part of the Caravan of Mothers of Missing Migrants. As the group searches for sons and daughters who vanished en route to the U.S.
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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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The Sky Is Red
From 1968 to present day, the strange counterculture world of ultimate frisbee has been a backdrop for incredible change. In The Sky Is Red, five underrepresented and marginalized individuals push for racial, class, and gender equity in the sport.
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Ex Libris, or The Bookplate Project
EX LIBRIS is an animated documentary film tracing the vanished world of the ex libris collection my grandfather Marco Birnholz commissioned, created and lost in Vienna, Austria between the two world wars. EX LIBRIS will explore the intimate, intricate, universe, parallel to his everyday life as a neighborhood pharmacist.
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The Roar of a Lion Cub
Encouraged by an unprepared, but determined American cinematographer, three Mongolian homeless teens reluctantly navigate the forced, premature transition into adulthood as they fight to survive within the harsh realities of their rapidly changing society. Overcoming language barriers and cultural boundaries, they create an unlikely long-distance family made by determination.
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Call Me Lucky
Henry Schloss, a young Holocaust survivor who lost every member of his family in the camps, develops the obsession of filming his son once he becomes a father. Inside, however, he struggles with undiagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
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Death Metal Grandma
Death Metal Grandma follows the story of 96 year old Holocaust survivor, former WW2 spy and famous songwriter Inge Ginsberg as she decides to pursue a new career: Death Metal.
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Abortion Helpline: This is Lisa
At the Philadelphia abortion helpline, counselors arrive each morning to the nonstop ring of calls from women and teens who are seeking to end a pregnancy but can’t afford to. In this short documentary we learn how economic stigma and cruel legislation determines who in America has access to abortion.
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Toxic Beauty
A whistle blower, her lawyer, world-class scientists, cancer survivors and those who have lost their lives, strip a dominant pharmaceutical company of all credibility in this powerful documentary film, while exposing the hard truths about dangerous, unregulated chemicals and toxins in cosmetics and care products.
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EL RETORNO / THE RETURN
EL RETORNO follows Aura, a cleaning woman in Manhattan. Shouldering numerous burdens and overcoming struggle, her willpower helps her survive in her two worlds. Amidst a tenuous political backdrop Aura returns to Colombia to the dream house she’s built but will that ultimately bring her the peace she longs for?
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Morenita
Morenita is a genre-mixing visual poetry experience that digs into the bridges and barriers of language, womanhood, ancestral curses and assimilation through the friendship of two Latina immigrants in the US.
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The Fight
Inside the ACLU, a team of scrappy lawyers battle Trump’s historic assault on civil liberties.
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Guangzhou Love Story
In China, an unprecedented surge in African migration has led to a rise in marriages between Chinese women and African men. GUANGZHOU LOVE STORY captures the love, heartache, and struggles of one Afro-Chinese family attempting to build a home for themselves in the face of racism and xenophobia.
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It's Not Who I Am
Women are going to jail and prison at rates that have increased by 700% since 1980, a rate 50% higher than men. When they are released, they have expectations of starting life anew, however, in their re-entry journey, they are often confronted with an unforgiving society.
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