Career Highlights

• Successful film director, film producer, and screenwriter.
• President and CEO of the production company he founded, May 3rd Films, Inc., named after his son's date of birth.
• Fraser’s second documentary, Len Bias: The Legend You Know, the Story You Didn’t, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 13th Annual American Black Film Festival.
• ESPN Films’ 30 for 30 is an unprecedented documentary series featuring thirty films from some of today’s finest storytellers.

Career Overview

This year, ESPN celebrates their 30th year of programming with the “30 for 30” series, featuring Kirk Fraser’s “Without Bias” documentary. Len Bias, a star basketball player and role model from the University of Maryland, dies of a cocaine overdose two days after he was drafted for the Celtics in the 1986 NBA Draft. This documentary includes compelling commentary from his former teammates, family and friends, revealing what truly took place the night of Bais’ death.

Fraser grew up in Maryland and was nine years old when Bias died, influencing Fraser to never use drugs. His interest in film began with a high school production class and continued into his college studies at Howard University. There he interned for Chucky Thompson and learned the creative process of creating mainstream music videos and worked for Bertelsmann Music Group as a college marketing representative. Kirk left BMG and Howard University in 1999 to create a weekly TV program called “Local Beat” until he assembled his own company, May 3rd Films in 2002. The company’s shift from media services to production allowed him to produce and direct his first documentary, The Life of Rayful Edmond in 2005, which won Best DVD Documentary at the First Annual Urban DVD Awards. He has also directed the documentary Against All Odds, produced several episodes of BET American Gangster, Lil Kim: Countdown to Lockdown and Party Boyz.

Our Interview

Kirk Fraser sits down with ThinkTalk host Zack Sherwood to discuss his documentary “Without Bias.” Fraser offers career advice for aspiring filmmakers on how to finance a film and get it off the ground. He also discusses the background behind his production company and how it got started.