Women Make Movies
Women Make Movies (WMM) is a nonprofit feminist film organization based in New York City. It began in September 1969 as a feminist production collective started by Ariel Dougherty, Sheila Page, and Dolores Bargowski after citywide Women’s Liberation meetings. By 1973 they had produced four films. In March 1972 the group incorporated as a community workshop to teach film to everyday women, and they also started a distribution service to earn income.
In the mid-1970s WMM created a membership program to screen and distribute the work of its members. In the early 1980s the focus shifted to distributing independent films by and about women, while also offering production help to women filmmakers.
Today, WMM distributes more than 500 films by over 400 women filmmakers from nearly 30 countries. The films cover topics such as reproductive rights, AIDS, body image, economic development, racism, immigration, medical ethics, and global feminism. The collection includes works by Trinh T. Minh-ha, Julie Dash, Pratibha Parmar, Jane Campion, and Kim Longinotto.
WMM titles have appeared at major festivals like the Sundance Film Festival, Cannes, IDFA, and the Athena Film Festival. Their films have won awards including Sundance’s Special Jury Prize (The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo and Rough Aunties), an Academy Award (Love & Diane), an Emmy (Quick Brown Fox: An Alzheimer’s Story), and a Peabody (Sisters in Law). In 2011, the Athena Film Festival honored WMM for its work distributing films by and about women.
Many WMM films have aired on networks such as HBO/Cinemax, PBS, Sundance Channel, and Rede Globo. The organization has worked with PBS, Hunter College, the Museum of Modern Art, and other NYC media arts groups. Debra Zimmerman has been the executive director since 1983. The Academy Film Archive houses the Women Make Movies Collection, which includes prints, masters, and original film elements from many titles about women.
Website: wmm.com
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:00 (CET).