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" We have to deal with the way that race influences our criminal justice system. "
Yance Ford
Justice
Criminal Justice
Race
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" It's important that people understand that 'Strong Island' is just as much about this claim of reasonable fear and our need to interrogate reasonable fear as it is about my family's grief. "
Yance Ford
Grief
Strong
Family
" 'Strong Island' has been a labor of love and dedication on the part of so many people, that it's just an incredible recognition to be honored. And to be the first trans director - and, I believe, the first African-American trans director - to be nominated for an Academy Award is incredibly, incredibly special to me. "
Yance Ford
Me
Strong
People
" People come up and say, 'Thank you' for showing a black family loving their masculine-presenting child and for undoing the myth of black people as being rabidly homophobic. "
Yance Ford
Family
Child
Black
" White people get to do that all of the time. They get to engage in bad behavior, even felonious behavior, but they rarely wind up in jail. But as a black person, losing your temper can cost you your life. Or insisting on your rights can cost you your life. "
Yance Ford
People
Black
Time
" I will never understand how so many young women can go out in the freezing cold wearing so little clothing. "
Yance Ford
Women
Understand
Never
" Black lives are too easy to take in America because we don't want to question why people are so afraid of black and brown people to begin with. And that's what I want 'Strong Island' to do. "
Yance Ford
America
Strong
People
" There is nothing quite as exciting as watching a master at work. "
Yance Ford
Work
Master
Nothing
" Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that. "
Yance Ford
Justice
You
Believe
" My impression is that the Academy is really sincere about moving toward a more inclusive and representative Hollywood. "
Yance Ford
More
Moving
Inclusive
" Film festivals are usually unpleasant experiences on some level. The lines are ridiculous, the crowds are ridiculous, or the schedules are impossibly arranged: 'You say that there's a film you really want to see? Try the 8 A.M. show! Oh, it's too bad you didn't get to bed until 2 A.M. the night before.' "
Yance Ford
Say
Night
Festivals
" White communities - and I exempt poor white communities from this - have power over their representation. White people have the ability to define themselves, to exert their agency in a way that they get to be believed. No one believes black people. No one. Until a white person vouches for them. "
Yance Ford
Way
White
Power
" I hope that audiences understand that there is a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address, that there has always been a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address. In fact, our country is built on the precariousness of black lives, the disposability of black lives. "
Yance Ford
Hope
Need
Understand
" I think fear has been racialised. When you get someone who says 'I was afraid' of a big black guy, that's enough to say, 'Okay, not guilty,' or, 'No indictment.' It's persisted over generations, and it needs to stop. "
Yance Ford
Fear
You
Think
" The quality of festival Q&As is often a matter of chance. Sometimes the lights come up on movies I loved, and not a single meaningful question is asked. Sometimes it's the opposite. "
Yance Ford
Movies
Lights
Loved
" When I use the word 'buzz' in successive sentences, it's clearly time for me to stop writing. "
Yance Ford
Word
Writing
Time
" I remind audiences that I'm in the fortunate position to make a film about my family. "
Yance Ford
Remind
Position
Make
" I have a lot of surrogate parents, but there's no one like your mother. "
Yance Ford
Mother
Your
Lot
" I don't think I present as gender-conforming on screen, but some people need a little extra information. "
Yance Ford
Information
Think
Present
" What little return documentary filmmakers get often comes in the form of recognition by their peers and the critics who influence doc audiences around the country. "
Yance Ford
Peers
Recognition
Country
" If I can help one family embrace their child and not displace them and throw them out, I'm happy about that. "
Yance Ford
Help
I Can
Out
" Instincts are a really important guide for any artist, but particularly filmmakers because it takes a lot to stay true to your instincts as a storyteller. "
Yance Ford
Stay True
Artist
True
" Being nominated is such a tremendous honor. An Oscar win for me and for the 'Strong Island' team would be the cap to an incredible journey. But it would also mean that my brother will not disappear from history. "
Yance Ford
Brother
Team
Strong
" I love marching bands. "
Yance Ford
Bands
Marching
Love
" When I was making 'Strong Island,' it was very clear to me that my brother's death was a point on a line that stretched back into the 1940s and beyond in my family - and in the nation. "
Yance Ford
Back
Family
Me
" I would hate for people to think that 'Strong Island' is just about a family's grief. It is about a family's grief, yes, but it is also an interrogation of our criminal justice system. "
Yance Ford
Hate
Grief
Family
" I had a list of 10 rules when we started 'Strong Island,' and one of them was, 'Yance will never appear on camera with sync sound.' "
Yance Ford
Sound
Camera
Island
" My father just believed in my mother's ability to do anything. "
Yance Ford
Ability
Anything
Father
" Grief is a very complicated monster. There's no real exorcising of it. It has a different form every day. "
Yance Ford
Every Day
Real
Complicated
" It would have been tough for anyone to adapt 'Push' - an amazing but wrenching novel by Sapphire - for the screen, and I think director Lee Daniels made interesting choices, particularly with Precious' fantasies. In my view, some of them work and some do not, but they are definitely provocative directorial choices. "
Yance Ford
Think
Work
Amazing
" My brother's death picked up my life and put it down somewhere else. I had an image of myself in my mind as a working artist, and when he died, all of that changed. "
Yance Ford
Death
Myself
Mind