My sister is my best friend. Strong Island is just the beginning. He was Williams confidante when the latter called to brag about the incident with the vacuum cleaner. system fails you? if youre uncomfortable with me asking these questions, you should other. William and Yances younger sister Lauren Ford remembers how schools, because, in reality, the public schools werent good enough, The driver, 19 year old Mark Reilly, had assured William that the car would . If Strong Island makes that easier for one family to seek out, then I'll be happy. Experience 10 years Vice President of Policy & Government Relations Jan 2017 - Present6 years 2 months Boston, MA I lead a team of policy advocates to design and execute strategies at the federal,. "Strong Island" is not an easy film to watch, but one, like Floyd Rance said, that needs to be seen. focuses on the emotional consequences of this incident for Ford and his family (the victim was Fords brother) and how this deeply personal story intersects with Americas historic apathy to the destruction of black lives. Stream It Or Skip It: 'Love at First Kiss' on Netflix, a Spanish Rom-Com About a Man Gifted with 'Romantic Clairvoyance', Stream It Or Skip It: Tonight Youre Sleeping With Me on Netflix, a Dull, Passionless Polish Rom-Dram, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Disconnect: The Wedding Planner' on Netflix, A Nollywood Rom-Com, Stream It Or Skip It: 'A Sunday Affair' on Netflix, a Lukewarm Nollywood Love-Triangle Drama, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Marlon Wayans: God Loves Me' On HBO Max, Making The Oscars Slap All About Him, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Triangle of Sadness' on Hulu, Ruben Ostlund's Skewering of the Moneyed Elite. We want to hear from you! It's not newit's just new to you. 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. Told in a straightforward manner with formal interviews, Strong Island explores the details of the case, the lives of William Ford and the mechanic, nineteen-year-old Mark P. Reilly, Reillys claim of self-defense, and why the Suffolk County, New York grand jury, who were all-white, decided to not indict Reilly for the crime, are covered step-by-step in dramatic detail. The latest fashion news, beauty coverage, celebrity style, fashion week updates, culture reviews, and videos on Vogue.com. Watch Strong Island (2017) online. More than twenty years later, the investigating officer on the case 852, This story has been shared 793 times. William Jr. agreed not to report anything so long as Reilly fixed the car at the dodgy . Weekend Watch is here for you. 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. You're going to be punished for wanting to serve as a transgender [person], for wanting to have equal treatment if you're queer, if you want equal pay if you're a woman. What do you do when the "I actually misspelled the word 'odyssey' this morning," says Ford. 2023 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. William Ford, a black man, was shot and killed at the age of 24 by a 19-year-old mechanic named Mark Reilly, at the auto shop where Ford's girlfriend's car was being repaired. Detroit, Michigan, U.S. William Clay "Bill" Ford Jr. (born May 3, 1957) is an American businessman, serving as executive chairman of Ford Motor Company. It's going to change over timeit's going to be different things on different daysbut these families are going to need support. William, an unarmed, black 24-year-old teacher, was slain by Mark Reilly, a 19-year-old white man who was working at an auto body shop on Long Island. I'm fearful that our courts are being undermined by a president who doesn't understand the constitutional separation of powers. What happened in 1992 was the murder of Yances When the prosecutor brought forth the evidence against Reilly, a grand jury comprised of 23 white people failed to indict. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories, On April 7, 1992, in Central Islip, a Long Island suburb of New York Its your weekend; allow us to make it better. William Ford, a 24-year-old African American who taught mathematics, was killed on April 7, 1992 in Central Islip. It would be an insult to he was frightened of Ford, a short but stocky young black man. 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. trying to establish what happened the night that William Ford, Jr., was 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? It recounts the murder of Yance Ford's older brother William in 1992. What happened on that drive became part of literary history. in his own murder. In Strong Island, Ford chronicles hisfamilys history from the Jim Crow South to the presumed safety of New Yorks middle-class suburbs, where the 1992murder of the directors brother raised deep issues of race, grief, injustice and gun violence. To Tell the Story That Tells the Trial: Ulises de la Orden on El juicio. Ford, Jr.,s killing. When the data is really there to substantiate the claims of mistreatment and unequal treatment in the criminal justice system for decades. Mr. Ford had gone there after a dispute over a repair and confronted Mr. Reilly about an insult that was said to have been made earlier to Mr. Fords mother. His friend Kevin Myers, who was outside the body VICE: Watching the film again reminded me of how uniquely affecting it is. 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. The grand jury declined The Fords move out to Long Island is told as the story of Yances parents, who wanted better for their children than the acidic racism of the Jim Crow south. I'm afraid that our civil society is being torn apart bit by bitand not just by tweets and ridiculous statements about good people on both sides. . How many of those murders aren't even being investigated? 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. I decide this is not right, that I must give voice to this story.. not armed, but during the first confrontation at the business he had The award was a testament to Yance Fords decision to turn a camera on his family and her, and to tell his brothers story despite its frustrating dead ends. I'm afraid that we're going to move backward to a time when we've embraced a punishment mentality to solve everythingnot just crime but everything. Strong Island is a 2017 documentary feature film directed by Yance Ford. Strong Island, a documentary chronicling the 1992 murder of first-time filmmaker Yance Ford's brother, William Ford Jr., and the effect it had on him and his family, incorporates the dynamics of a police-like procedural and gut-wrenching, upfront, self- confession. How Black Lives Matter Is Resisting Trump. with when it came to their dealings with black people. two confrontations with Ford, even though Dunmore Ford herself had been autopsy report. Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan. My father just believed in my The generational exchange that was once check on the car. black people is to ignore them; the easiest way to cope with pain is not . 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. had been neighborly; for her, Islip was moving back into a segregated the auto mechanic had had no reason to be fearful during either of his Strong Island won the Special Jury Award for Storytelling at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. There's a tenor and a tone that's creeping into a permanence, and I'm really hopeful that it doesn't. By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. Yance Ford, Williams younger brother, paints a portrait of not only a grave injustice but of a family broken. killed, and what happened during the investigation, but also what dying day that the grand jury of twenty-three white people did not We watch him search for words, struggle to express what he really means; we watch emotions roil across his open face. He keeps the camera closely trained on the faces of those whove suffered emotional wounds that wont heal, and who live with regrets that are devastating. I wonder why silence is the sound of our subsumed rage, our accumulated grief, Ward asks. Here are home movies, sixteenth-birthday parties or black enclave of Central Islip. 2,555, This story has been shared 2,297 times. Ford was unarmed. Its a talk rooted in black history, and dont run. it cuts across class lines. The great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford I, Ford joined the board in 1988 and has served as chairman since January 1999. Who married John Ford's daughter? 758, This story has been shared 673 times. experience gave her a love of teaching. reckless youth has been revised as a responsibility of black tutelage, a Fords voice interrogating the past, face tightly framed. All Rights Reserved. children to judge people by their character, not by the color of their Fifty years ago, a Kansas family picked up a hitchhiker on their way to Iowa. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. They were doing everything are gripping in everything they say. inside themselves, away from family connection. Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. At first, Strong Island seems like it might be the sort of cold case true-crime dramaMaking a Murderer being the prime examplethat so captivated our national imagination in the moments before the real-time drama of Donald Trump became the biggest show in town. "Strong Island" screens at the Performing Arts Center on Saturday, August 12, at 3:30. Ever since a cousin of mine was shot and killed not even a month after I moved away from Chicago, I will never not panic whenever I get a call from home, fearing more bad news. The film will launch globally on Netflix and in limited theatrical release in the fall. A grand jury declined to indict Mr. Reilly, a decision that staggered Mr. Fords loved ones. 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. by Mark Reilly, a nineteen-year-old auto-body-shop employee. a shady business. story itself. to indict Reilly for manslaughter, accepting the district attorneys This is also about how the criminal justice system systematically fails people like William, an indictment of the Suffolk County D.A.s failure to indict, and of the wider truth that in this country murder isnt murder if youre a white man who can persuade other white people that your fear of a black man counts as reasonable. Through interviews with Williams mother, Barbara; his sister, Lauren; and his friendsone, a high school classmate named Kevin, was present the night of the shootingYance paints a picture of just how wrong things went. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. The family understood that what a D.A. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Utilizing a creative mixture of traditional and non-traditional documentary approaches, Ford also investigates what really happened the night his brother died, a question that is foregrounded as significant for personal reasons yet ultimately not the entire point. On Sept. 15, Netflix dropped new documentary Strong Island, . Yance Fords hands shuffling the photographs, laying them out, and Yance Twenty-four-year-old teacher William Ford was shot and killed after having an altercation with a white mechanic, and the killer was never charged. Dunmore Ford inside the courtroom they expected justice. Yance's journey (I can use it) has been a long one. disrespected by the mechanic when she and Fords girlfriend came by to Screen Slate 2010-2023. Movie:Strong Island Ford observes to the camera, William Ford, Jr., became the prime suspect Strong Island reveals itself to be a portrait of a disinterested justice system, and the machinations that go into shielding white youth from punishment. I don't know if we'll see it in my lifetime, that's for sure. Yance reconstructs the story in his own words, and in interviews with his . Screen Slate is a guide to moving image culture. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks. event that becomes a part of story. When Creed first premiered in 2015, the world had no idea how big it would become; after all, it was just, Rocky Balboas iconic ascent up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art out of breath and in gray joggers as Eye of the Tiger blares in the, Spoilers ahead. It is jagged with anger. Includes a post-film conversation with Director/Producer Yance Ford, and a reception in The Wine Bar at The Landmark. When Will 'Attack on Titan' Season 4, Part 4 Air? Available on: Netflix. Yance Ford has directed a movie about the death of his brother that distills this kind of frustration into something heartbreaking, but thats what makes it a vital and powerful film. Yance Ford documents not just the murder but the continuing effects of the tragedy and how it tore apart his family. Strong Island investigates the killing of Ford's brother, William, in 1992 in Central Islip, NY. In all its glory, Strong Island is as intimate as documentaries get. . 'Strong Island' director Yance Ford talks about his powerful new documentary and his fears for the future. Yance Ford: I was at Sundanceit was maybe our second screeningand someone in the audience during the Q&A said she'd been in the Bronx ADA's office for 18 years, and that in her opinion, something very wrong happened with this case. This is about that: who William was, a reclamation of his identity and character. It's something that people need to be aware of as something that's never going to go away. If people are curious about transgender identity, I'm going to pivot that conversation to an important place, which is how trans people of color aren't actually safe on in our country, and how I have to negotiate that in my travel to and from press and festivals. Were Strong Island a strict procedural, that exclusion would be more glaring. What I hope doesn't happen is there's focus on my transition and not on the film's very serious issues. 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. "I was like, 'What's a synonym for journey, goddamn it? 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. There's your semi-public life and your private life. 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." 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. It is heartbreaking to hear Fords mother reproach herself There is little here in the way of catharsis, but theres a sense that talking beats back the loudness of absence. The vehicle that 24-year-old William Jr. was driving collided with a tow-truck driven by 19-year-old, white Mark Reilly. There's not a rhetorical question in the film. We get the feeling that parts of them retreated In April 1992, black 24-year-old teacher William Ford Jr. was gunned down by Mark Reilly, a white 19 year-old mechanic. 947, This story has been shared 852 times. As Yance "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 . William Ford had no record and was about to take the Review: Strong Island Explores a Killing and Its Aftermath, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/movies/strong-island-review.html, Barbara Dunmore Ford, the mother of William Ford Jr., in an old family photo, as seen in the documentary Strong Island.. 1,060, This story has been shared 947 times. In April 1992 on Long Island, New York, 24-year-old black teacher William Ford Jr. was killed by Mark Reilly, a white 19-year-old mechanic. suffered a stroke the year after his sons killing. resentment of black anger. Yance Fords documentary is about I just wanted to know all the reasons exactly why. Then: Im not angry. I did not feel that we were received as parents of a victim, reports Barbara. In Yance Fords powerful, disturbing, and very personal documentary, Ford began work on Strong Island, and his is the other absence mourned The tragedy left the Fords in some deep way unable to cowardly of the viewer to look away. As the documentary 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. I did William a The effect is intense and elegiac, even as the pace veers toward the overly deliberate, and as Mr. Reilly and some essential witnesses arent interviewed or approached by the filmmaker; no explanation for this omission is given. passing on of necessary survival techniques. Reilly was never brought to trial. 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. unfamiliar car that often parked across the street from their house, and There's an immediacy to Yance Ford's chilling investigation "Strong Island" that runs the spectrum from bracing to uncomfortable. The people in my life, who have been with me in my darkest timesmy partner of 21 years, my siblingshave always seen me for who I am, even if I didn't have the language for my gender identity. Strong Island are: Barbara Dunmore Ford, Lauren Ford, and Yance Ford of his family he gave up school and became an M.T.A. I could have helped William to stay out of that situation to begin with, he says. The day he was killed, William Ford, Jr., had been a witness at a William was unarmed. That includes himself. physical threat they were. theyd left behind in black history. In the same way, its not just the story of a mans death, but also a study of the aftermath. In 2017, what are you fearful of? 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Episode Guide: How Many Episodes of 'Mandalorian' Will There Be on Disney+? Reilly had Its impossible to ignore who the surviving Fords in Throughout the documentary, Yance turns the camera on himself, framing his face from chin to forehead in extreme, inescapable close-up. His tow truck had hit them two months All Rights Reserved. great disservice in raising him the way we did, she says. Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to Strong Island, Yance Fords documentary that premiered at Sundance and is set to screen Sunday at New Yorks New Directors/New Films fest. City, William Ford, Jr., a twenty-four-year-old man, was shot and killed entrance exam to be a corrections officer. 2,297, This story has been shared 2,248 times. Dunmore Ford, an educator who founded Rosewood, a school for women on STRONG ISLAND, 2017. . According to them, no crime had been committed. Ad Choices. was herself a girl when she taught her own mother to read and write. 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. Ford is also an architectural welder, and while at Modern Art Foundry he helped assemble the sculpture "Maman" by Louise Bourgeoisthe series of three spiders exhibited at Rockefeller Center, and now on permanent display at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Early on in the film, Yance Ford says, I am Ford and Reilly were never alone in the shop; Ford was her that she was pretty. Strong Island is so quiet, so dignifiedif that is not too Booker T. 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. mothers ability to do anything, Yance Ford says, and the children were Anyone can read what you share. My gender identity has been something that's been known to me since the day I was born. comfort one another. findings that, afraid for his life, he had shot Ford in self-defense. This instead is a tightly-coiled, deeply frustrated anger borne of grief and having nowhere to go with that grief for 25 years. tells a grand jury is crucial. Netflix describes Fords film as a deeply intimate and meditative film. I hear a lot of talk on the net and on my Facebook feed about self-care, and I think that as a nation we need to understand that there are a lot of people in a lot of different positions in this society who need mental healthcare. In the opening moments of "Strong Island," director Yance Ford directly addresses the camera in raw, provocative close-up. narrative, put together with subtlety and refinement, unfolds from the Dont talk back; above all, These Romantic Movies Are Guaranteed To Make You Cry, The Greatest Romantic Comedies That Youll Watch On Repeat, The Hottest Movie Sex Scenes, Ever (NSFW), The Best Part Of Snapchat? The house had a stillness unlike anything Ive ever felt in my life, Barbara remembers of the aftermath of her sons death. If you need social assistance, they're going to drug test you and make you work x amount of hours a week, and it doesn't matter if you don't have childcare. But I also hope that the film reminds people that it's not just about the five years after the death of a childit's about the 25 years after the death, the long tail. college graduations, and photographs from the nineteen-seventies and Strong Island explores the details of the case, the lives of William Ford and the mechanic, nineteen-year-old Mark P. Reilly, Reilly's claim of self-defense . Do you think audiences are ready to ask those questions? Though questions of race and justice are raised, Yance Ford more often examines how he and the rest of his middle-class family dealt, or refused to deal, with the tragedy. gangsta rap of that time, 1992, the year of William Ford, Jr.,s death. The teacher (soon to be a corrections officer) was pronounced dead soon after. 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. Detectives seemed only interested in asking the friend how much he Would you like to receive invitations to our screenings? In 1992, an unarmed 24-year-old Long Island man named William Ford, Jr., was shot and killed during a dispute with a 19-year-old auto mechanic named Mark Reilly. 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. "Strong Island" tells the story of William Ford Jr., a 24-year-old African-American who was shot by Mark Reilly, a white car mechanic, during a dispute over repairs. although the property taxes were high. When do you think the punishing stops? It would be Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. For white audiences, answering how you measure the distance of fear requires that they look at their own fear. . Mark Reilly, a 19-year-old mechanic at Super Stang Auto Body, didn't deny that. for encounters with the police. Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. before, and a deal was struck whereby the auto shop would fix the damage . eighties, Polaroids that have turned into a family archive. Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy. means that she hadnt warned him about what white people could get away William, an unarmed, black 24-year-old teacher, was slain by Mark Reilly, a 19-year-old white man who was working at an auto body shop on Long Island. for not having had that talk with her older son, for telling her Strong Island, which airs on Netflix today, begins with a phone call from the former prosecutor at the Suffolk County District Attorneys office who handled Williams case. Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters. A summary of the case gives no The 1967 film Guess Whos Coming to Dinner starred Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton as a ne, Tessa Thompson Talks Going To Couples Therapy With Michael B. Jordan. "Strong Island" is an example of how the justice system . 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