The film features Danny Glover, Susan Rockefeller, Tony Tabatznik, Michel Merkt and Laura Poitras as executive producers, as well as American Documentary|POV, Danish Film Institute, DR K Denmark. It's going to change over timeit's going to be different things on different daysbut these families are going to need support. William was unarmed. "Strong Island" tells the story of the murder of 24-year-old Ford, a black teacher killed by a white 19-year-old mechanic named Mark Reilly in Long Island in 1992. "Mark Reilly already said everything he had to say to me when he shot and killed my brother." Ford titled "Strong Island" after a hip-hop term for the region that was popularized in the . Her father died of an asthma Is 'Operation Fortune' Streaming on HBO Max or Netflix? I enjoyed my brother the hero, and a month or so later, that hero was dead. The films most affecting moment comes when Barbara, a principal who believed above all in the power of education, who inculcated in her children a sense that the world was fundamentally fair, declares: I did William a great disservice in raising him how we did. 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Episode Guide: How Many Episodes of 'Mandalorian' Will There Be on Disney+? For white audiences, answering how you measure the distance of fear requires that they look at their own fear. Yance Ford, who is transgender, is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Sundance Documentary Film Program Fellowship, and was among Filmmaker Magazines 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2011. STRONG ISLAND chronicles the arc of the Ford family; Barbara Dunmore, William Ford and their three children, and how their lives have been shaped by the enduring shadow of race in America. In one of these close-ups, towards the beginning of the film, Ford draws a clear line for his audience: If youre uncomfortable with me asking these questions, you should probably get up and go. For those who decide to stay past that warning, Strong Island offers an exceptionally powerful viewing experience. resentment of black anger. We then see Yance get decades-old information from a police officer after literally years of trying in vain to get any information about the investigation out of the authorities who says that the earlier altercation was indeed a big part of the reason why the grand jury thought Reilly was acting in self-defense. details are important. I don't want to say that I'm not optimistic, but I don't think that optimism is in my toolbox of feelings, honestly. Washington a thing to say. The house had a stillness unlike anything Ive ever felt in my life, Barbara remembers of the aftermath of her sons death. Weekend Watch is here for you. Strong Island asks what one can do when the grief of loss is entwined with historical injustice, and how one grapples with the complicity of silence, which can bind a family in an imitation of life, and a nation with a false sense of justice., Says Ford: Because Netflix is a global platform, Strong Island will be seen by communities around the world who are dealing with the issues that are unpacked on screen. 2023 Cond Nast. When Dunmore Ford recalls how much she and her husband, William Ford, tells a grand jury is crucial. VICE: Watching the film again reminded me of how uniquely affecting it is. A summary of the case gives no In a week where a reality TV favourite finally addressed its known colorism problem, Netflix UK dropped The Strays (February 22) a psycholo, Over the decades, popular culture has created dominant narratives of the Dominican Republic that are most often synonymous with poverty, crime, or state vi, This story contains spoilers for Ant-Man: Quantumania. The entire feature is a personal journey for the filmmaker, who has had to endure years of pain because of their brother's death, which has received no justice at all despite the seemingly obvious murder. We get the feeling that parts of them retreated STRONG ISLAND, 2017. . Sing, Unburied, Sing is shadowed by the long aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Although Ford was unarmed, he . I wonder why silence is the sound of our subsumed rage, our accumulated grief, Ward asks. Im also not willing to accept that someone else gets to say who William was.. Yance Fords grandmother had been forced to leave school in the fourth real-estate developers in Central Islip were looking for black He wanted to get his family out of the city, and K. F. Watanabe On an April night in 1992, William Ford, Jr., a 24-year-old black man, was shot and killed by Mark Reilly, a white teenager, in Central Islip, Long Island. Oscar-nominated documentary Strong Island chronicles how an investigation into a young black mans murder in 1992 turned into a personal journey for the brother of the victim, filmmaker Yance Ford. You don't like being the focus of the conversation. The Fords left the Jim Crow South in the 1960s but experienced a different type of prejudice and isolation in their new home on Long Island. William Ford Jr, a 24-year-old African American, was shot dead by Mark Reilly, a young white . dying day that the grand jury of twenty-three white people did not Dunmore Ford segregation of nineteen-sixties Charleston, South Carolina. Fords death, as his grieving mother puts it, was in vain., Twenty-five years later, filmmaker Yance Ford has revisited the details of his older brothers death in a challenging, emotionally stinging documentary. It would be an insult to And I hated that moment. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Im not going to do that., That slam-the-door-in-your-face attitude characterized much of the investigation into Williams death. for not having had that talk with her older son, for telling her When I say, "How do you measure the distance of reasonable fear?," it's a real question. There is no analysis deep enough, no policy robust enough, and no justice swift enough to change that. I'm fearful and, frankly, angry that our justice department seems hell-bent on rolling back the very late criminal justice reforms that happened toward the end of Barack Obama's second term. On April 7, 1992, after returning home from his testimony, he was shot in the chest on Long Island, New York, during a heated confrontation with mechanic Mark Reilly, 19, who was working on. shop when the shooting occurred, was prepared to testify in court that Yance, who is transgender, talks about how close he and William were, and more shatteringly, about his regrets. Update January 24, 2018: Strong Island has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, making Ford the first trans person to ever receive an Oscar . 2023 Cond Nast. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck Mark Valentines Day With Commitment Tattoos, Heres Everything Coming to Netflix in March 2023, 17 Oscar-Nominated Netflix Films to Watch in Honor of Awards Season, 8 Skin-Care Dos And Donts According to an A-List Facialist, Meet Etienne Fleurquin, the Danish Model Who Was a Saint Laurent Exclusive. S, Welcome to Love Like This?, a romance column where we, Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Ineye Komonibo, revisit some of the most romantic or not, in hindsig, Whether its the iconic early-aughts film Love Dont Cost a Thing or her 2021 Netflix hit Resort to Love, Christina Milian has solidified herself in th, This story contains spoilers for Netflixs You People. What happened on that drive became part of literary history. probably get up and go. Racism is character assassination. 2023 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. black people is to ignore them; the easiest way to cope with pain is not a shady business. Its my hope that this film will offer some a way to make sense of their own experience, and others a new way of seeing. black enclave of Central Islip. reckless youth has been revised as a responsibility of black tutelage, a A white assistant district attorney in Brooklyn had , is the director of the new Netflix documentary "Strong Island," which examines not just the murder but its aftermath including the failure of the criminal justice system and its effects on Ford's family.. Yance Ford was a 19-year-old art student when his brother was killed. How many of those murders aren't even being investigated? For audiences that experience this and are finally being believed because of social media, cellphone cameras, body cameras, empirical studies from people like the Marshall Project, books like The New Jim Crow it's like, "OK, finally, now we believe you." killed, and what happened during the investigation, but also what The body weighs 240 pounds, is 5 feet 8 inches in height, and appears compatible with a reported age of 24 years. Yance aims to reanimate that corpse. His tow truck had hit them two months Many, many times I wonder: How could I be so wrong?, Strong Island, as messy as the mess left in Williams wake, leaves many threads loose, many elements unresolved. Plus: each Wednesday, exclusively for subscribers, the best books of the week. These Celebrities, Where Are They Now: 15 Of Your Favorite Celebs From 15 Years Ago. 2,204, This story has been shared 1,797 times. As Yance Dunmore Ford, an educator who founded Rosewood, a school for women on His question was interesting, because it was an example of how some people conflate the two incidents in the film into one. All families have their own stories; the Fords' story is one of bloodshed. His autopsy report read: The body is that of a well-developed obese black male. to speak of it, even to the self. Would you like to receive invitations to our screenings? other. William and Yances younger sister Lauren Ford remembers how held onto Fords girlfriends car for longer than the couple had And it's not over yet. Synopsis [ edit] The film centers on the April 1992 murder of Ford's brother William, a 24-year-old African-American teacher in New York, who was killed by Mark P. Reilly, a 19-year-old white chop shop mechanic. As the title of the film indicates, the events of the film take place on Long Island, New York, where in April of 1992, William Ford Jr., a black 24 year-old teacher, was killed by Mark Reilly, a . The teacher (soon to be a corrections officer) was pronounced dead soon after. I could have helped William to stay out of that situation to begin with, he says. You know what it means to live a life where you have to map the airports that have family bathrooms so you can go into a restroom and not feel either endangered because people can be violent if they think that you're a short gay manor if women in the ladies room think that you're a man in the women's room and call the cops? Rikers Island, says in Strong Island that she will believe until her As the title of the film indicates, the events of the film take place on Long Island, New York, where in April of 1992, William Ford Jr., a black 24 year-old teacher, was killed by Mark Reilly, a white 19-year-old mechanic after a series of arguments that began with a fender-bender. before, and a deal was struck whereby the auto shop would fix the damage According to them, no crime had been committed. happened to the Ford family afterward. attack, unattended in the colored section of a hospital waiting room. 1,060, This story has been shared 947 times. William was unarmed. When Will 'Attack on Titan' Season 4, Part 4 Air? 'Mandalorian' Funko Pops up to 77% Off Baby Yoda and More for Season 3, Who Plays the Armorer in 'The Mandalorian'? . Strong Island is a 2017 documentary feature film directed by Yance Ford. Have we accepted fear as a rationale for homicide when it's actually supposed to be reasonable fear? Ford, Jr.,s killing. Barbara Dunmore Ford remembers that document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); WatchDocumentaries.com | Games | Quizzes | Contact |Privacy & Terms | Manage Cookies |Advertise | DMCA, After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News. are gripping in everything they say. Yance Ford documents not just the murder but the continuing effects of the tragedy and how it tore apart his family. Fords mother, Barbara inside the courtroom they expected justice. A Yanceville Films and Louverture Films production, Strong Island was produced by Ford and Joslyn Barnes and was co-produced by Signe Byrge Srensen for Final Cut for Real. There was also a butch lesbian in Toronto who thanked me afterwards for showing a black family loving their masculine-presenting child, helping to undo this notion that African Americans or people of African descent are the most homophobic people in the galaxy. There's an immediacy to Yance Ford's chilling investigation "Strong Island" that runs the spectrum from bracing to uncomfortable. Studio Screen: Strong Island Sunday, December 17, 2017 4:00 PM 7:00 PM Maysles Cinema 343 Lenox Avenue New York, NY, 10027 United States (map) Google Calendar ICS Buy Tickets Facebook Event Yance Ford, 2017, 97 min In the spring of 1992, William Ford Jr. was murdered by a young white mechanic named Mark Reilly. Yance Fords extraordinary ten-years-in-the-making documentary 758, This story has been shared 673 times. Its your weekend; allow us to make it better. A grand jury declined to indict Mr. Reilly, a decision that staggered Mr. Fords loved ones. The generational exchange that was once Meet Cleo Anthony, Netflix's 'Money Shot' Documentary Trailer Shines A Harsh Light On Pornhub, The "Most Trafficked Website In The World", 'The Skinny Shot' on Hulu Is An Ozempic "Documentary" That Plays More Like A Commercial, Where Is Estonia Located? expected the repairs to take. With Strong Island, first-time director Yance Ford examines the circumstances and aftermath of his brother's 1992 murder.When 24-year-old William Ford, Jr. was shot and killed by a 19-year-old mechanic, Mark Reilly, his family was left confused and dismayed when his killer was allowed to go unprosecuted. theyd left behind in black history. government employees who could afford to be homeowners. I'm not necessarily in a state of transformationI'm just being more public about it, which is a semi-uncomfortable place because I'm a private person. At the end of the day, I'm privileged to make documentary films and to have a family that loves me. schools, because, in reality, the public schools werent good enough, Not the white-hot rage that explodes off the screen or even the crusading anger that can sometimes galvanize groups of people. Documentary chronicling how an investigation into a young black man's murder in 1992 turned into a personal journey for the brother of the victim. My mother, frankly, always saw me for who I was. There was also a young man in Toronto who asked me how I could reconcile Mark Reilly's fear with my brother's behavior. The ruin that Williams death has caused is written all over Yances face, which is a map of regret, frustration, and impotent rage. His friend Kevin Myers, who was outside the body The driver, 19 year old Mark Reilly, had assured William that the car would . "Strong Island" is not an easy film to watch, but one, like Floyd Rance said, that needs to be seen. it cuts across class lines. Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. This is interwoven with the history of Fords family told through photographs, detailing roots in the Jim Crow South and his parents courtship and the eventual pursuit and dissolution of the American dream in the red-lined Long Island neighborhood wherein Ford grew up and William was murdered. The painful, intimate story of grief to follow focuses on the life and sudden death of Yance's older brother Williammurdered in cold blood in 1992 at the age of 24. As the documentary He regrets not coming out to his brother before he died, not being able to show him who he really was. The children He was the kind of man who kept a journal about his goals, who wrote poetry, who had angst about his future. Hopefully, after Strong Island, I'll go on to make another film, and another after that. Would she go through some of the questions that have been plaguing me for the past 22 years? asks Yance. I remember the first time I really understood what love was or at least what a nine-year-old could understand as romantic love.
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