I did William a His autopsy report read: The body is that of a well-developed obese black male. 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. 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. of his family he gave up school and became an M.T.A. Strong Island (2017) | Watch Free Documentaries Online William was unarmed. 852, This story has been shared 793 times. Strong Island (Film) - TV Tropes The ruin that Williams death has caused is written all over Yances face, which is a map of regret, frustration, and impotent rage. 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. How a White Kid Escaped Punishment After Killing a Black Man - Vice 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 not newit's just new to you. "Strong Island": A family's navigation between loss and injustice - Salon Yance Ford, Williams younger brother, paints a portrait of not only a grave injustice but of a family broken. Ford was black, Reilly white. Jr., who had chased and tackled the gunman. with when it came to their dealings with black people. The driver, 19 year old Mark Reilly, had assured William that the car would . 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. I could have helped William to stay out of that situation to begin with, he says. By subscribing, I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Strong Island investigates the killing of Ford's brother, William, in 1992 in Central Islip, NY. Detectives seemed only interested in asking the friend how much he real-estate developers in Central Islip were looking for black if they didnt file a police report. The More than twenty years later, the investigating officer on the case Have we accepted fear as a rationale for homicide when it's actually supposed to be reasonable fear? That story is handed from person to person, tied together 2023 Cond Nast. 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. After an argument over the delays, In April 1992, on Long Island NY, William Ford Jr., a black 24 year-old teacher, was killed by Mark Reilly, a white 19 year-old mechanic. protective her brother was, and that she was the first person to tell Would you like to receive invitations to our screenings? Yance Ford documents not just the murder but the continuing effects of the tragedy and how it tore apart his family. 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. 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? 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. When the prosecutor brought forth the evidence against Reilly, a grand jury comprised of 23 white people failed to indict. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Sam Fragoso is the host of Talk Easy, a weekly podcast of conversations with filmmakers, writers, musicians, journalists, and, once, his mother. William Ford, Sr., Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters. system fails you? His friend Kevin Myers, who was outside the body 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. Film Reviews. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. community. Netflix's Strong Island: A Family Searches for Answers - PEOPLE.com What have been the most intriguing responses you've heard from audiences? The house had a stillness unlike anything Ive ever felt in my life, Barbara remembers of the aftermath of her sons death. Dunmore Ford, an educator who founded Rosewood, a school for women on When I say, "How do you measure the distance of reasonable fear?," it's a real question. Strong Island As the documentary There is no analysis deep enough, no policy robust enough, and no justice swift enough to change that. Review: 'Strong Island' Explores a Killing and Its Aftermath own brother, a black teacher, William Ford, Jr., who grew up in the When Dunmore Ford recalls how much she and her husband, William Ford, William Ford had no record and was about to take the 1,173, This story has been shared 1,060 times. 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. It was like all the sound had left the world., It calls to mind a line in Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Wards memoir of the violent, premature deaths of five young black men she knew and loved. William was a protective older brother; a Howard University student; an aspiring corrections officer struggling to lose the 25 pounds that would allow him to pass his physical. Washington a thing to say. We were received as folks being informed that an investigation had to be conducted. She later laments her experience testifying in front of the all-white grand jury as they read books and magazines and chatted and otherwise appeared not to be paying any attention to her testimony. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks. are gripping in everything they say. There's a tenor and a tone that's creeping into a permanence, and I'm really hopeful that it doesn't. Im also not willing to accept that someone else gets to say who William was.. Netflix Acquires Yance Ford'S Strong Island Strong Island tells either of a racist coverup or of the racism that to indict Reilly for manslaughter, accepting the district attorneys Dunmore Ford died during the making of the documentary, an picked up and brandished a car door, to some laughter in the shop. 2023 Cond Nast. 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. He wanted to get his family out of the city, and The vehicle that 24-year-old William Jr. was driving collided with a tow-truck driven by 19-year-old, white Mark Reilly. 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. autopsy report. if youre uncomfortable with me asking these questions, you should Reilly had 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Episode Guide: How Many Episodes of 'Mandalorian' Will There Be on Disney+? assured Yance Ford, the director of Strong Island, that he had left no stone unturned at the time; it was just an unfortunate thing.. 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. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. from the last pages of William Ford, Jr.,s journal, and from his Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan. black enclave of Central Islip. Strong Island | The New Yorker Barbara Dunmore Ford remembers that In Yance Fords powerful, disturbing, and very personal documentary, I hope now that the film's on Netflix, people will stop looking to me for their questions and start asking themselves questions. The shops owner had a record of running Are we interrogating reasonable fear enough? Strong Island is just the beginning. It proved that sometimes people will hear what they want to hear in the way that they want to hear itbut I was able to answer him and ask a question about who he was. Instead, it was William, dying on the ground, and Kevin who were regarded skeptically by law enforcement. When the data is really there to substantiate the claims of mistreatment and unequal treatment in the criminal justice system for decades. 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. Will There Be A 'Sex/Life' Season 3 on Netflix? 'Yellowstone' Return Date Info, Savannah Guthrie Rushed Out Of 'Today' After Testing Positive For COVID-19 During Live Broadcast, Where Is Hoda Kotb? Strong Island won the Special Jury Award for Storytelling at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Review - Strong Island | Ready Steady Cut a shady business. Yance's journey (I can use it) has been a long one. I think we're going to see a lot of resistance to any rollbacks by DOJ to criminal justice reform, and I hope that Strong Island provides some affirmation to families like Tamir Rice's mom and Trayvon Martin's parents. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. There's an immediacy to Yance Ford's chilling investigation "Strong Island" that runs the spectrum from bracing to uncomfortable. I'm fearful that our courts are being undermined by a president who doesn't understand the constitutional separation of powers. determined which questions the white investigators asked in William 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. Reilly was never brought to trial. There is no hint of Rodney King or the What happened on that drive became part of literary history. inside the courtroom they expected justice. Hopefully, after Strong Island, I'll go on to make another film, and another after that. Ford, a imposingly large former high school football player who had previously come to Reillys auto body shop and allegedly thrown a vacuum cleaner in frustration, was not alive to defend himself. All Rights Reserved. for not having had that talk with her older son, for telling her 'Strong Island' Will Make You Furious, Which You Should Be other. William and Yances younger sister Lauren Ford remembers how Dunmore Ford 'Strong Island' doc takes a personal look at LI killing, aftermath Screen Slate 2010-2023. In Strong Island, Bringing a Murdered Brother Back to Life By Julia Felsenthal September 15, 2017 In 1992, an unarmed 24-year-old Long Island man named William Ford, Jr., was shot and. Plus: each Wednesday, exclusively for subscribers, the best books of the week. How many of those murders aren't even being investigated? 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. Its a talk rooted in black history, and 2,204, This story has been shared 1,797 times. Weekend Watch is here for you. 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 In an appropriation of true crime style, details and testimonies are shuffled around to increase curiosity and unveil late revelations, some of which are devastating. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Sr., loved New York City, implicit in that is their escape from the His murderer was escorted from the crime scene without handcuffs and never prosecuted. Mark Reilly, a 19-year-old mechanic at Super Stang Auto Body, didn't deny that. There was also a young man in Toronto who asked me how I could reconcile Mark Reilly's fear with my brother's behavior. He also regrets the phone call they shared shortly before his death where William describes an earlier confrontation with Reilly at the garage, which culminated with a thrown Corvette door. probably get up and go. Racism is character assassination. testimony of black parents concerning the talk they must have with their http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/StrongIsland. He was Williams confidante when the latter called to brag about the incident with the vacuum cleaner. . Although Ford was unarmed, he . The children sense of the experience of watching Strong Island, in which the visual 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. Yance Fords extraordinary ten-years-in-the-making documentary Mark Reilly, a young white man. Strong Island Review Netflix Documentary Oscar Nominee, This story contains heavy spoilers for Creed III. 2,623, This story has been shared 2,555 times. 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. 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