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| Type | Limited liability company Subsidiary of May 3rd Media |
|---|---|
| Industry | Motion pictures |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Founder | Kirk Fraser |
| Headquarters | Washington DC |
| Website | may3rdfilms |
May 3rd Films is a film and television production company founded in 2003 by noted filmmaker Kirk Fraser.
May 3rd Films feature documentary debut, The Life of Rayful Edmond. [1] was released to high acclaims and considered by critics as a success. Following the success of true-crime stories, pre-production started the Winter of 2006 on the life of Len Bias. During the 2008 Sundance Film Festival the Len Bias film was promoted with a guerilla marketing tactics that landed a deal with ESPN. [2] In 2009 the Len Bias film won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 13th Annual American Black Film Festival. [3] The titled was later changed to Without Bias and aired as part of ESPN documentary 30 for 30 series. [4] May 3rd Films also has produced several television shows for Black Entertainment Television, Fox Sports Networks, TV One, and ESPN. [5]
| Year | Award | Result | Category | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Urban DVD Awards | Won | Best Documentary | The Life of Rayful Edmond |
| 2009 | American Black Film Festival | Won | Best Documentary | Without Bias |
| 2010 | Black Reel Awards | Won | Best Documentary | Without Bias |
| 2010 | The New York Festivals | Won | Television & Film Community Portraits | Without Bias |
| 2010 | Sports Emmy Award | Nominated | Outstanding Sports Documentary | Without Bias 30 for 30 |
| 2010 | Peabody Award | Won | Outstanding Documentary | ESPN Films 30 for 30 |
Hoop Dreams is a 1994 American documentary film directed by Steve James, and produced by Frederick Marx, James, and Peter Gilbert, with Kartemquin Films. It follows the story of two African-American high school students, William Gates and Arthur Agee, in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players.
Leonard Kevin Bias was an American college basketball player for the Maryland Terrapins. During his four years playing for Maryland, he was named a consensus first-team All-American. Two days after being selected by the Boston Celtics with the second overall pick in the 1986 NBA draft, Bias died from cardiac arrhythmia induced by a cocaine overdose. In 2021, Bias was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
Parker Christian Posey is an American actress and musician. Posey is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award nomination, a Satellite Award nomination and two Independent Spirit Award nominations.
Morgan Valentine Spurlock is an American documentary filmmaker and television producer.
America Georgina Ferrera is an American actress. Born in Los Angeles to Honduran parents, Ferrera developed an interest in acting at a young age, performing in several stage productions at her school. She made her feature film debut in 2002 with the comedy-drama Real Women Have Curves, earning praise for her performance. Ferrera has won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award among others.
Kirby Bryan Dick is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best known for directing documentary films. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith (2005) and The Invisible War (2012). He has also received numerous awards from film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival.
Tequan Richmond, also known as T-Rich, is an American actor best known for playing Drew Rock on the UPN/CW sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. Richmond played Ray Charles Jr. in the motion picture Ray, and in the soap opera General Hospital on ABC, he portrayed TJ Ashford.
Participant Media, LLC is an American film production company founded in 2004 by Jeffrey Skoll, dedicated to entertainment intended to spur social change. The company finances and co-produces film and television content, as well as digital entertainment through its subsidiary SoulPancake, which the company acquired in 2016.
Philip Alexander Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."
Nanette Burstein is an American film and television director. Burstein has produced, directed, and co-directed several documentaries including the Academy Award nominated and Sundance Special Jury Prize winning film On the Ropes.
Steven Cantor is an American film/television director and film/television producer. Eight of his films have been nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards, with two winning, including the 2022 Outstanding Documentary prize for When Claude Got Shot. While as student in graduate school, Steven was nominated for an Academy Award for his first film, Blood Ties.
Kirk Fraser is a film director, screenwriter, and film producer.
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,660 attending in 2016. It takes place each January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.
30 for 30 is the title for a series of documentary films airing on ESPN, its sister networks, and online highlighting interesting people and events in sports history. This includes three "volumes" of 30 episodes each, a 13-episode series under the ESPN Films Presents title in 2011–2012, and a series of 30 for 30 Shorts shown through the ESPN.com website. The series has also expanded to include Soccer Stories, which aired in advance of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and audio podcasts.
Roger Ross Williams is an American director, producer and writer and the first African American director to win an Academy Award (Oscar), with his short film Music by Prudence; this film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2009.
Mahboubeh Honarian is an Iranian-Canadian film director and film producer. She was awarded her MSc in engineering multimedia and BA in Humanities with a media and cultural studies bias in the United Kingdom.
The Life of Rayful Edmond Vol. 1 The Rise and Fall is a documentary film written and directed by Kirk Fraser. It was released by May 3rd Films on July 12, 2005 in Washington DC.
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017.
Shalini Kantayya is an American filmmaker and environmental activist based in Brooklyn, New York, whose films explore human rights at the intersection of water, food, and renewable energy. Kantayya is best known for her debut feature documentary, Catching the Sun.
Marina Zenovich is an American filmmaker known for her biographical documentaries. Her films include LANCE, Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which won two Emmy awards.
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