The 90th Oscar nominations were announced Tuesday, and “Strong Island” made history for its transgender director.
The Academy Awards will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel March 4 on ABC.
‘STRONG ISLAND’
Yance Ford of “Strong Island” became the first transgender director to be nominated for an Oscar.
“Everybody out there should know that there is a generation of trans directors who are coming for their Oscars,” Ford told Entertainment Weekly Tuesday after his film received a nod for Best Documentary Feature. “So this might be the first, but it certainly won’t be the last.”
“Strong Island,” Ford’s first feature-length film, is a documentary about the death of his brother, William Ford, a high school teacher fatally shot April 7, 1992, by a white mechanic on Long Island, New York.
“The very exciting thing for me when I think about history is that this film is a correction to the historical record of my brother’s life,” Ford told EW, “and if this nomination helps to magnify that and if by making history I helped to magnify that, then… it’s all good as far as I’m concerned.”
‘Strong Island” made Oscar history as the first documentary from a transgender director. Photo: Netflix.
