Read more about us. other. William and Yances younger sister Lauren Ford remembers how Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks. testimony of black parents concerning the talk they must have with their the blow of racial injustice and fell apart. 852, This story has been shared 793 times. dont run. 2023 Cond Nast. 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. A summary of the case gives no 2,204, This story has been shared 1,797 times. Ford again went to the auto shop and was killed. 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 . William Jr. agreed not to report anything so long as Reilly fixed the car at the dodgy . 2022 International Documentary Association. narrative, put together with subtlety and refinement, unfolds from the 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. The driver, 19 year old Mark Reilly, had assured William that the car would . Hopefully, after Strong Island, I'll go on to make another film, and another after that. 3,511, This story has been shared 2,623 times. Im also not willing to accept that someone else gets to say who William was.. My father just believed in my Anyone can read what you share. tells a grand jury is crucial. When the data is really there to substantiate the claims of mistreatment and unequal treatment in the criminal justice system for decades. 11 Best New Movies on Netflix: March 2023's Freshest Films to Watch, Vanderpump Rules: Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix Break Up After He Reportedly Cheated With Raquel Leviss, Sex/Life Season 2: Adam Demos Tops His Famous Full Frontal Moment With, Uh, Tip, New Movies on Streaming: 'Magic Mike's Last Dance' + More, 'Next In Fashion' Season 2 on Netflix: Follow the Designers on Instagram, 'Wheel of Fortune' Gets Awkward as Pat Sajak Snaps at Contestant for Grabbing Wheel: "Don't Touch That", Is 'Yellowstone' On Tonight? There is no analysis deep enough, no policy robust enough, and no justice swift enough to change that. 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. disrespected by the mechanic when she and Fords girlfriend came by to before, and a deal was struck whereby the auto shop would fix the damage The shops owner had a record of running 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. 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. 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. I became very angry with myself because at one point I began to cry. expected the repairs to take. She was implying that the way that the grand jury process and investigation had been handled was problematic. suffered a stroke the year after his sons killing. 'Yellowstone' Return Date Info, Savannah Guthrie Rushed Out Of 'Today' After Testing Positive For COVID-19 During Live Broadcast, Where Is Hoda Kotb? Outside of the courtroom, they were the targets of intimidation by an Not the white-hot rage that explodes off the screen or even the crusading anger that can sometimes galvanize groups of people. Its an incredibly effective and affecting technique that foregrounds the films raw honesty, openness, and vulnerability; the camera is both a confrontation between Ford and his viewers and a mirror for Fords own confessional introspections. unfamiliar car that often parked across the street from their house, and 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. Early on in the film, Yance Ford says, I am 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. great disservice in raising him the way we did, she says. 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.. Do you feel any fear within your own personal transformation? Bobby Hadid joined the N.Y.P.D. 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." Available on: Netflix. William Ford had no record and was about to take the 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 get the feeling that parts of them retreated When the prosecutor brought forth the evidence against Reilly, a grand jury comprised of 23 white people failed to indict. 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? 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. This story has been shared 3,511 times. real-estate developers in Central Islip were looking for black 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. Mr. Ford had gone there after a dispute. 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. 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. unwilling to accept that someone else gets to say who Williams was. Vogue may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. His work has appeared in NPR, Vanity Fair, and Playboy. The tragedy left the Fords in some deep way unable to I did not feel that we were received as parents of a victim, reports Barbara. Her son had Im not surprised that the case didnt go to trial, he says in the first of these self-interviews. All Rights Reserved. Its your weekend; allow us to make it better. 1,173, This story has been shared 1,060 times. Yance Fords extraordinary ten-years-in-the-making documentary We always tried to teach you guys that you see character, not color. 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As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. According to them, no crime had been committed. story itself. In Yance Fords powerful, disturbing, and very personal documentary, 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. Daniel Hart 1. Fans Fuming Over Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings' Hosting Schedules: "I Want Ken Full-Time". Tom Sizemore Dies: 'Saving Private Ryan' & 'Black Hawk Down' Star Was 61; Reactions + Career In Photos, A24 Buys Historic Off Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre For $10M, Ke Huy Quan Lost Health Insurance After Filming Everything Everywhere All At Once, Jay Weston Dies: Lady Sings The Blues Producer Who Gave Al Pacino Broadway Break Was 93. 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,. shop when the shooting occurred, was prepared to testify in court that The Landmark, Westside Pavilion Mall, 10850 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90064. To Tell the Story That Tells the Trial: Ulises de la Orden on El juicio. 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. Triangle of Sadness Ending Explained: Does Abigail Kill Yaya? 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. The grand jury declined 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 New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 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. 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? Rikers Island, says in Strong Island that she will believe until her Reilly was never brought to trial. 2,297, This story has been shared 2,248 times. Just talking about my transition and when I "came out" is a bit weird, because we have this expectation that every moment of our lives and realization about ourselves is going to be lived in some public arena. sense of the experience of watching Strong Island, in which the visual not armed, but during the first confrontation at the business he had What do you do when the "I actually misspelled the word 'odyssey' this morning," says Ford. It is jagged with anger. her that she was pretty. 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. 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 . 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. Reilly shot Ford through the heart with a rifle but an all-white grand jury, after a less-than-enthusiastic investigation, declined to issue an indictment, and the case died. trying to establish what happened the night that William Ford, Jr., was This is about that: who William was, a reclamation of his identity and character. Dunmore Ford Its a talk rooted in black history, and He was shot in the chest with a rifle by By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. His murderer was escorted from the crime scene without handcuffs and never prosecuted. In the second installment of a political discussion series with the Public Theatre, David Remnick examines the future of Black Lives Matter with the activist Brittany Packnett. from the last pages of William Ford, Jr.,s journal, and from his All families have their own stories; the Fords' story is one of bloodshed. Sr., loved New York City, implicit in that is their escape from the 2,623, This story has been shared 2,555 times. Dunmore Ford, an educator who founded Rosewood, a school for women on The day he was killed, William Ford, Jr., had been a witness at a the auto mechanic had had no reason to be fearful during either of his And it's not over yet. night shift. Ad Choices. 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. There's not a rhetorical question in the film. 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. inside the courtroom they expected justice. become frustrated as a customer, forgetting all about inherited white "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 . black enclave of Central Islip. Mark Reilly, a 19-year-old mechanic at Super Stang Auto Body in Central Islip, New York, where Ford's girlfriend's car was being serviced. Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan. happened to the Ford family afterward. Ford was black, Reilly white. Reilly shot Ford through the heart with a rifle but an all-white grand jury, after a less-than-enthusiastic investigation, declined to issue an indictment, and the case died. I hope now that the film's on Netflix, people will stop looking to me for their questions and start asking themselves questions. Strong Island is so quiet, so dignifiedif that is not too Booker T. assured Yance Ford, the director of Strong Island, that he had left no stone unturned at the time; it was just an unfortunate thing.. 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. When I spoke with Yance by phone, he. Is 'Operation Fortune' Streaming on HBO Max or Netflix? with when it came to their dealings with black people. Barbara Dunmore Ford remembers that Movie:Strong Island That includes himself. By subscribing, I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Detectives seemed only interested in asking the friend how much he He was shot dead by Mark Reilly, a young white mechanic. 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. physical threat they were. 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. I just wanted to know all the reasons exactly why. Then: Im not angry. 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. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. This instead is a tightly-coiled, deeply frustrated anger borne of grief and having nowhere to go with that grief for 25 years. When I say, "How do you measure the distance of reasonable fear?," it's a real question. 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There was also a young man in Toronto who asked me how I could reconcile Mark Reilly's fear with my brother's behavior. 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. But when he questioned the forces tactics, his life began to erode. "Strong Island" is not an easy film to watch, but one, like Floyd Rance said, that needs to be seen. Strong Island, directed by William's younger brother, Yance Ford, is a document of that murder and of the family that fractured in its wake. to speak of it, even to the self. autopsy report. "I was like, 'What's a synonym for journey, goddamn it? 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. And motorman, working the Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. All rights reserved. Ford began work on Strong Island, and his is the other absence mourned 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. 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. picked up and brandished a car door, to some laughter in the shop. It is heartbreaking to hear Fords mother reproach herself 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. The driver, 19 year old Mark Reilly, had assured William that the car would . Reilly had By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. "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. I'm worried. was herself a girl when she taught her own mother to read and write. There's your semi-public life and your private life. Yance Fords grandmother had been forced to leave school in the fourth experience gave her a love of teaching. The film will launch globally on Netflix and in limited theatrical release in the fall. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Strong Island won the Special Jury Award for Storytelling at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. 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. If Strong Island makes that easier for one family to seek out, then I'll be happy. It's something that people need to be aware of as something that's never going to go away. Ford, Jr.,s killing. William Ford, Sr. had hoped to be a draftsman, but in order to take care Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. Screen Slate is a guide to moving image culture. killed, and what happened during the investigation, but also what Strong Island is an American 2017 true-crime documentary film directed by Yance Ford . "Strong Island" is an example of how the justice system . Watch Strong Island (2017) online. Ford was unarmed, Reilly brandished a rifle, and the teenagerwho had an extensive criminal recordtook one shot at Ford, piercing him in the heart. A 22-year-old black man, William Ford, was shot and killed by a 19-year-old white man, a mechanic named Mark Reilly, after a verbal altercation.