Entertainment

Netflix’s New True Crime Documentary Will Be Its Most Important Yet

“I’m not wiling to accept that someone else gets to say who William was”

America is going through a true crime phase. Making A Murderer, the multiple O. J. Simpson shows, The Keepers—we’re endlessly fascinated with a classic "did he or didn’t he do it" story. Next up is another Netflix creation that’s already sitting pretty with a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The year was 1992 when 24-year-old William Ford Jr. was allegedly shot on Long Island, New York, by a 19-year-old white man. Although there was an arrest in this case, the 19-year-old wasn't indicted by a grand jury, and Ford's family never got to see the murderer brought to justice. In fact, though he was unarmed, William became the prime suspect in his own murder. In the documentary Strong Island, Yance, William’s brother, is hoping to highlight the issues in the American justice system and show how William’s death impacted his family, while also celebrating his life in the process. More than that, the documentary explores the twisted and ever-present history 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,” Netflix said in a statement of the film, “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.”

Watch the trailer, above. The film hits the streaming service September 15.