Detectives seemed only interested in asking the friend how much he If Strong Island makes that easier for one family to seek out, then I'll be happy. 1,173, This story has been shared 1,060 times. 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Mark Reilly, a 19-year-old mechanic at Super Stang Auto Body, didn't deny that. Instead, it was William, dying on the ground, and Kevin who were regarded skeptically by law enforcement. When do you think the punishing stops? When I spoke with Yance by phone, he was a mix of overwhelmed and composed. In all its glory, Strong Island is as intimate as documentaries get. 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. 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. Fans Fuming Over Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings' Hosting Schedules: "I Want Ken Full-Time". All Rights Reserved. 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. 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: 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. 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. 2022 International Documentary Association. 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. Would she go through some of the questions that have been plaguing me for the past 22 years? asks Yance. What We Know About Her Continued 'Today Show' Absence, 'Jeopardy!' 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. by phone calls in the middle of the night, every night; nevertheless, When the prosecutor brought forth the evidence against Reilly, a grand jury comprised of 23 white people failed to indict. are gripping in everything they say. Washington a thing to say. No, the lawyer responds. 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. Bobby Hadid joined the N.Y.P.D. We always tried to teach you guys that you see character, not color. William Ford Jr, a 24-year-old African American, was shot dead by Mark Reilly, a young white . That story is handed from person to person, tied together There is no hint of Rodney King or the It's something that people need to be aware of as something that's never going to go away. 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. The latest fashion news, beauty coverage, celebrity style, fashion week updates, culture reviews, and videos on Vogue.com. The grand jury declined tells a grand jury is crucial. 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? event that becomes a part of story. of his family he gave up school and became an M.T.A. The vehicle that 24-year-old William Jr. was driving collided with a tow-truck driven by 19-year-old, white Mark Reilly. Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. 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. The powerful and very personal documentary Strong Island is the story of a black family that could not sustain the blow of racial injustice and fell apart. theyd left behind in black history. What do you do when the 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." Her son had reckless youth has been revised as a responsibility of black tutelage, a He was shot dead by Mark Reilly, a young white mechanic. There's an immediacy to Yance Ford's chilling investigation "Strong Island" that runs the spectrum from bracing to uncomfortable. Dunmore Ford died during the making of the documentary, an She wonders how she could have been so wrong. not armed, but during the first confrontation at the business he had 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,. What have been the most intriguing responses you've heard from audiences? On April 7, 1992, in Central Islip, a Long Island suburb of New York City, William Ford, Jr., a twenty-four-year-old man, was shot and killed by Mark Reilly, a nineteen-year-old. Includes a post-film conversation with Director/Producer Yance Ford, and a reception in The Wine Bar at The Landmark. With the emotional adventure of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever closing out the controversial fourth, Minor spoilers ahead. trying to establish what happened the night that William Ford, Jr., was Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy. 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. Ford began work on Strong Island, and his is the other absence mourned William Ford Jr. was shot and killed on April 7, 1992, an incident at the center of the documentary Strong Island. Something deep inside his family also died that night, and Yance Ford, one of Williams siblings and the films director, explores that loss, exposing a grief that is profound and agonizing. 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. William Ford had no record and was about to take the Best Picture Nominee Triangle of Sadness Is Now Streaming on Hulu, Stream It Or Skip It: 'Gulmohar' on Hulu, a Hindi Family-Ties Drama Marking the Return of Sharmila Tagore, Steven Spielberg Broke Down in Tears Seeing Paul Dano and Michelle Williams as His Parents in 'The Fabelmans', Is Brendan Frasers The Whale Based on a True Story? mothers ability to do anything, Yance Ford says, and the children were 852, This story has been shared 793 times. Mr. Ford had gone there after a dispute. expected the repairs to take. City, William Ford, Jr., a twenty-four-year-old man, was shot and killed probably get up and go. Racism is character assassination. 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. Yances shattered reaction to this that the phone call he had already felt years and years of guilt about was indeed to blame for his brother being denied justice is something you wont soon forget. for encounters with the police. system fails you? The elderly Jewish women in Brooklyn 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. Since Trayvon Martins killing, we have become familiar with the unfamiliar car that often parked across the street from their house, and own brother, a black teacher, William Ford, Jr., who grew up in the Strong Island won the Special Jury Award for Storytelling at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. it cuts across class lines. 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 is so quiet, so dignifiedif that is not too Booker T. Film Reviews. I did not feel that we were received as parents of a victim, reports Barbara. 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 is barely a moment inStrong Island, the Netflix documentary that premieres today, that isnt suffused with anger. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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. William was unarmed. The Landmark, Westside Pavilion Mall, 10850 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90064. What happened in 1992 was the murder of Yances His murderer was escorted from the crime scene without handcuffs and never prosecuted. experience gave her a love of teaching. All families have their own stories; the Fords' story is one of bloodshed. Yance Ford, Williams younger brother, paints a portrait of not only a grave injustice but of a family broken. Ford again went to the auto shop and was killed. Highlights from the week in culture, every Saturday. other. William and Yances younger sister Lauren Ford remembers how It is jagged with anger. The Are we interrogating reasonable fear enough? after 9/11, to protect his new country. 2023 Cond Nast. Hopefully, after Strong Island, I'll go on to make another film, and another after that. 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 resentment of black anger. Were Strong Island a strict procedural, that exclusion would be more glaring. Yance Fords hands shuffling the photographs, laying them out, and Yance Yance Fords extraordinary ten-years-in-the-making documentary motorman, working the I'm fearful that our courts are being undermined by a president who doesn't understand the constitutional separation of powers. And How Black Lives Matter Is Resisting Trump. Strong Island Im not going to do that., That slam-the-door-in-your-face attitude characterized much of the investigation into Williams death. suffered a stroke the year after his sons killing. dying day that the grand jury of twenty-three white people did not Daniel Hart 1. Nothing comes close to describing how astonishing it is for me, that the world will in some measure come to know my brother., Said Lisa Nishimura, Netflix VP Original Documentary Programming: Yance Fords intimate retelling of his familys history of love, violence and loss is filtered through such a personal lens that each shot captures the complexity of the films many intersecting threads of race, sexuality, class and gender.. In Yance Fords powerful, disturbing, and very personal documentary, It draws a line around your life, she says. 673, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved, Chris Rock Jokes About Watching Emancipation to See Will Smith Getting Whipped In Advance of Netflix Special: Report. William Ford, Sr. had hoped to be a draftsman, but in order to take care inside the courtroom they expected justice. As the documentary Available on: Netflix. grade, in South Carolina, to go to work stripping tobacco. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks. Those are An all-white grand jury voted not to indict Reilly and the investigation has remained sealed. "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. STRONG ISLAND, 2017. . That's the thing that's going to be tough for people. picked up and brandished a car door, to some laughter in the shop. Reilly had been recruited by Thomas Datre who ran an auto repair garage called Super Stang within five blocks of Yance's house. All rights reserved. real-estate developers in Central Islip were looking for black He was shot in the chest with a rifle by The Terrifying Car Crash That Inspired a Masterpiece. had a good time, while the parents labored to keep them in Catholic held onto Fords girlfriends car for longer than the couple had Read more about us. cowardly of the viewer to look away. . 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. a shady business. 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. In January,Strong Island won the Sundance Film Festival special jury award for storytelling, with Netflix acquiring the film soon after. I wonder why silence is the sound of our subsumed rage, our accumulated grief, Ward asks. It would be . That includes himself. By subscribing, I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. . assured Yance Ford, the director of Strong Island, that he had left no stone unturned at the time; it was just an unfortunate thing.. "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 . Watch Strong Island (2017) online. 1,797, This story has been shared 1,393 times. portrayed in black drama as beaten-down old heads pleading with defiant, The film also functions as a memoir of sorts, exploring the long history of racism in America by centering on Yance Fords working-class Black family. Yance Ford documents not just the murder but the continuing effects of the tragedy and how it tore apart his family. Reilly, who is white, was arrested for manslaughter. sense of the experience of watching Strong Island, in which the visual testimony of black parents concerning the talk they must have with their passing on of necessary survival techniques. Its impossible to ignore who the surviving Fords in Ford observes to the camera, William Ford, Jr., became the prime suspect There is little here in the way of catharsis, but theres a sense that talking beats back the loudness of absence. For the past ten years, director Yance Ford has been investigating his family's story and the events that unfurled following his brother's murder. Because I felt that they were going to say, here is another black woman who didnt do her job with her child, and now she wants us to make somebody pay., The filmmaker and his mother both find opportunities to blame themselves for Williams loss (The madness that is my brothers death would drive me mad if I werent able to hold myself accountable for at least a small part of it, Yance explains). The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. killed, and what happened during the investigation, but also what According to them, no crime had been committed. It's not newit's just new to you. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. But its actually a far more personal, probing project, less a relitigation than a reckoning, less a procedural than a film about the Sisyphean task of processing terrible grief. I remember the first time I really understood what love was or at least what a nine-year-old could understand as romantic love. Angry words were exchanged until Super Stang employee Mark Reilly, a 19-year-old white man, went into the garage and out of sight. Respectful attention must be paid, because grief is in the room. I'm not gonna use that word again!'". in this film. "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. , 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. And it's not over yet. William Jr. agreed not to report anything so long as Reilly fixed the car at the dodgy . William, unarmed and black, was shot by a white . Yance Fords documentary is about Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime. 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. There's not a rhetorical question in the film. unwilling to accept that someone else gets to say who Williams was. Triangle of Sadness Ending Explained: Does Abigail Kill Yaya? When Will 'Attack on Titan' Season 4, Part 4 Air? He died before Yance 2023 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan. himself weighed, and how much Ford weighedas if to gauge how much of a call this an irony. William was unarmed. His tow truck had hit them two months To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/StrongIsland. 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. All rights reserved. His autopsy report read: The body is that of a well-developed obese black male. 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 I just wanted to know all the reasons exactly why. Then: Im not angry. great disservice in raising him the way we did, she says. All the essentials: top fashion stories, editors picks, and celebrity style.