The loss of a family member is devastating to anyone, but when that person’s legacy is wrapped up in injustice, the pain can be insurmountable. In the acclaimed Sundance documentary Strong Island, director Yance Ford explores the 1992 murder of his own brother, William Ford Jr., and how the justice system let his killer walk away. Ahead of a release next month on Netflix, the powerful first trailer has arrived.
“Strong Island communicates an intimate, searing story with a level of control (formal framing, evidentiary presentation of emotional content) that may be disconcerting,” Ford tells Filmmaker Magazine. “It may not be the vein of communication that audiences expect from a film where the filmmaker is also a character. But Strong Island is a meticulously thought out, visually constructed experience that invites the viewer into the life and home of its characters.”
See the trailer and poster below.
In April 1992, on Long Island NY, William Jr., the Ford’s eldest child, a black 24 year-old teacher, was killed by Mark Reilly, a white 19 year-old mechanic. Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. Director Yance Ford chronicles the arc of his family across history, geography and tragedy – from the racial segregation of the Jim Crow South to the promise of New York City; from the presumed safety of middle class suburbs, to the maelstrom of an unexpected, violent death. It is the story of the Ford family: Barbara Dunmore, William Ford and their three children and how their lives were shaped by the enduring shadow of racism in America.
A deeply intimate and meditative film, 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.
Strong Island hits Netflix and limited release on September 15, 2017.