Filmmaker Marquise Mays Uses His Artistry to Show the Beauty of Black Milwaukee
Marquise Mays current film he’s working on “The Heartland” is a love letter to Milwaukee. (Picture by Marquise Mays)
2020 will forever be the year Filmmaker Marquise Mays finally affirmed that he can use his films as a vessel. Instead of letting COVID stop his creative flow, it encouraged him to finish his film, “Blindspot” and to start working on another film, “The Heartland”—two films dedicated to the people of Milwaukee.
“Black people here are more than just political gains. We are a community of people who love each other hard. We are not trying to be like anyone else but ourselves,” Mays said.
Once he let go of his fears and insecurities, the world was ready to give him all that he deserved. Blindspot: a short film about the life of Mays's Granny Lue, has been screened at five festivals—two international and three domestic. This film was released earlier this year and according to the film description, Granny Lue is a woman of faith and fearlessness who never let her blindness stop her from living.
Mays recently announced that Blindspot is an official selection for the 2020 Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF.Docs) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He thought it would be at least five years from now until he started experiencing the success that he has right now.
“As creatives, we deny ourselves of our dreams so much. I was so convinced I wasn’t ready to live this life yet,” Mays said. “I was denying myself this life of being a full-time filmmaker.”
Stills from Blindspot. (Pictures by Marquise Mays)
It was a year ago in November when Mays was debating on if he should come back home to Milwaukee or stay in LA after graduating from USC School of Cinematic Arts (USC) for his Masters. This was also the same month that Mays lost one his of grandmothers, and that’s when he realized he had no actual footage or recordings of her to pass down to his future kids. That lost inspired the making of Blindspot.
A month later, Mays began filming his other grandmother Granny Lue, his great grandmother, his mother and his aunt all in two days, which he doesn’t recommend doing. According to Mays, this film is dedicated to honoring our elders and their stories.
Since it was Mays last semester of USC, he put Blindspot on the back burner to focus on graduating. Just a few months later and COVID hit, which forced Mays to finish his semester at home. Coming home showed Mays how hard the pandemic was hitting the Black community in Milwaukee, specifically the elders, so he decided to bring Blindspot back to the forefront.
“Y’all gotta talk to your grandparents. You have to know who they were before you came,” he said.
Marquise Mays. (Picture by Justin Gordon)
Since being home, Mays has graduated from USC, successful marketed Blindspot and now he’s working on his current film, The Heartland: a love letter to Milwaukee, specifically the Black community. Even though Mays was away from home for six years, everything he was creating somehow reflected his life in Milwaukee. For him, Milwaukee is the perfect landscape for his visions.
“I’m doing it for the community, period.” Mays said. “Everywhere I went I carried Milwaukee with me. The people here influence everything I do.”
The Heartland is displaying the true beauty of the Black kids in Milwaukee and all the power and potential that we have that others can’t seem to see. The media portrays our communities in a negative light and Mays is using his platform to magnify the untold stories of the City.
“Y’all can’t think about Milwaukee without thinking about Black people,” Mays said. “Black kids love this City way more than it could ever love them.”
And although Milwaukee may be known as the most segregated city in the country, Mays says there’s a unity here that can’t be broken.
“Milwaukee is full of loyalty to the tee. It is an unspoken bond that we have,” he said.
Stills from The Heartland. (Pictures by Marquise Mays)
The Heartland revolves around three narrators and explores the culture of Milwaukee from the unsolved case of the missing Alexis Patterson to the love of Twang: a Milwaukee dance style, which has yet to be fully covered in the media. Mays is filling those gaps and putting Black Milwaukee on the map by giving us a voice visually.
“We all have a responsibility to make this City more beautiful. You can leave Milwaukee, you can go, but you can come back here. You can live your wildest dreams here,” Mays said.
Watch Blindspot Below:
Watch the trailer to The Heartland below: