the production assistance program

The Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program was established in 1988 to develop and support women producing independent media. The Program fulfills this mission by offering support services including fiscal sponsorship, individualized consultations, workshops, networking and more. We are dedicated to increasing the diversity of women in the film industry and we especially encourage BIPOC/ALAANA, LGBTQIA women, older women, and women with disabilities to apply to our program.

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.

Since its inception, the Production Assistance Program has helped in the completion of hundreds of projects, including Oscar-winning documentary CITIZENFOUR, directed 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. The program has also supported critically-acclaimed fiction features like Dee Rees’ PARIAH and Sundance 2020 selections I CARRY YOU WITH ME (dir. Heidi Ewing, prod. Mynette Louie) and FAREWELL AMOR (dir. Ekwa Msangi, prod. Huriyyah Muhammad, Sam Bisbee, Josh Penn), We’re thrilled to have had 13 films in total from WMM current and alum filmmakers premiering at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival including THE FIGHT (dir. Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman), CODED BIAS (dir Shalini Kantaaya), ONCE UPON A TIME IN VENEZUELA (dir. Anabel Rodríguez Ríos, prod. Sepp R. Brudermann), and ABORTION HELPLINE, THIS IS LISA (dir./prod. Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, Mike Attie). In addition to Sundance, films supported by our program premiere at major festivals like Berlin, Tribeca, IDFA, and SXSW. Films and filmmakers we have supported have been nominated for or won Academy Awards for the last 15 years.

In the last 5 years, WMM’s Production Assistance 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.

BENEFITS OF THE PROGRAM Fiscal sponsorship Individualized fundraising and ongoing project consultations Online resources available through our password-protected site Project listing on our website offering your donors the option of making online donations via our secure server Networking opportunities with other women media makers Webinar and workshop discounts Scheduled use of the Women Make Movies’ conference room Access to WMM distribution titles Feedback on grant proposals and rough cuts Social media support for your project including crowdfunding campaigns, screenings and events One free fundraising or proposal writing workshop or webinar