On Tuesday 3rd March, Together Films presented a Virtual Conversation with Geeta Gandbhir, Director of the Oscar Nominated Feature Documentary THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR.
Geeta Gandbhir was in conversation with European Bureau Chief at The Hollywood Reporter, Scott Roxborough. You can now watch this conversation below.
THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR is available to watch on Netflix.
FILM SYNOPSIS:
Using bodycam footage from dozens of police visits, THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR bears witness to a tight-knit community navigating one neighbor’s relentless harassment. But her hostility takes a sinister turn when it escalates into a fatal crime.
CONVERSATION SUMMARY:
In this Virtual Q&A, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Roxborough spoke with Geeta Gandbhir, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Perfect Neighbor, about the deeply personal story behind her groundbreaking film.
Gandbhir, who had a personal connection to the victim Adjika Owens through her family, explained how receiving 30 hours of police body camera footage, spanning two years before the 2023 fatal shooting of Adjika by her neighbor, Susan Lawrence, in Florida, revealed both the warmth of a close-knit multiracial community and one outlier’s escalating hostility.
Rather than a traditional talking-heads documentary, Gandbhir deliberately crafted the footage into a cinematic thriller, drawing on her background as an editor and her mentors Spike Lee and Sam Pollard, to ensure the film would reach the broadest possible audience. She discussed the ethical care taken with Adjika’s family throughout the process, the immense technical challenge of synchronizing unsynchronized, shaky police cameras into a seamless narrative, and how the film has become a rallying point for the impact campaign StandingInTheGapFund.org, which advocates against Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws.
Gandbhir closed by reflecting on the film’s universal themes, manufactured fear, racial bias, and the true meaning of being a “perfect neighbor”, and her hope that audiences walk away inspired to take action in their own communities.
