Marquise Mays is an award-winning filmmaker and media scholar based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He holds a M.A in Cinema and Media Studies from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC) and a B.A in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). He is currently an Associate Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee teaching the foundations of non-fiction film. As an independent filmmaker and film studies scholar, both Marquise's films and research are careful renderings of individual Black life on- and off-screen. His method consists of presenting a cinematic work that intimately surveys the conditions of Black Americans living in the Midwest, with the intent to capture the humanity of individual subjects with precision and integrity.
Follow the Black String Triage Ensemble, a group of Black and Latinx musicians in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as it performs at crime scenes in the immediate aftermath of tragic events. Together, the group seeks to alter the notion of first responders.