(Editor’s observe: This interview was initially revealed in the course of the 2025 New York Movie Pageant.)
We’ve seen police cam footage on many true crime reveals. However we haven’t seen a film like “The Good Neighbor,” which works again in time to sew collectively a chilling portrait of a homicide.
When the movie received the Sundance 2025 U.S. Documentary Directing Award, editor-turned-director Geeta Gandbhir knew “there was most likely nothing prefer it,” she stated final week on Zoom. Already, the movie has earned six nominations for the Critics Selection Documentary Awardsin addition to a spot on the Oscar-predictive DOC NYC Quick Record.
When Gandbhir first discovered concerning the homicide of Ocala, Florida resident Ajike “AJ” Shantrell Owens, 35, who left 4 youngsters motherless on June 2, 2023 when her white neighbor, Susan Lorincz, shot and killed her, Gandbhir was mourning a household pal.
“It was grief work for us,” she stated. “It was my means of processing what had occurred. Ajike was shut to 2 of my husband’s cousins, we’re all very shut. That connection felt private. The making of the movie, as a result of I’ve no different abilities, frankly, and I don’t know tips on how to do anything, was what I needed to supply the household, and in addition a means of processing. I needed to grasp how this might occur: how does somebody choose up a gun and homicide their neighbor over such a trivial dispute, over some nonsense like children enjoying in a yard?”
Whereas the filmmaker had edited many movie and TV documentaries, and turned to directing fifteen years in the past (successful Emmys for “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Two Acts” and “By the Individuals: The Election of Barack Obama”), she usually shared directing credit score. Not this time.
When Gandbhir first bought her arms on the video footage in September 2023, it was overwhelming. “All the fabric that pertained to the case got here to us via the attorneys for the household.” Every part got here from the police on a thumb drive: Ring digital camera, sprint cam, cellular phone, and physique digital camera footage, detective interviews911 calls from each Susan and the neighborhood.
“It got here in a jumble,” stated Gandbhir. “It was not organized in any means. I took it upon myself to string it out. We had been capable of watch via it in items, however we didn’t perceive what number of police had been on scene. Typically there have been two, generally there have been 15, or some a lot bigger quantity. We would have liked to determine the chronology. I’d by no means seen any footage continuing against the law like this, materials that went again two years. So I took that materials and strung it out right into a timeline and spent a few weeks actually syncing it. It was detective work. I felt compelled, I needed to know. There was this want to grasp.”
As soon as the fabric was stretched out in a line, Gandbhir noticed a film in it. “We bought the footage in September,” she stated. “By October, which is after I had strung it out: ‘Holy shit, we may do that.’”
Gandbhir and fellow producer Nikon Kwantu each noticed tips on how to use the police cam footage: “It functioned inadvertently, like multi-camera,” she stated. “One would break up off and discuss to this particular person, one other would break up off and discuss to that particular person. And, we’ve all been obsessive about movies like ‘Paranormal Exercise’ or ‘Cloverfield’ or ‘The Blair Witch Challenge,’ the place it’s that first-person POV. It regarded immersive. After these two months: ‘There’s a movie. I understand how to make this.’”
First Gandbhir bought permission from Ajike Owens’ mom, Pamela Diaz. “She needed her daughter’s identify to not be forgotten. She takes quite a lot of power from Mamie Until, Emmett Until’s mom, who opened the casket on the funeral for him after he was lynched, and advised the reporters to come back and take footage, as a result of she actually needed the world to know what occurred to her child,” she stated. “(Pamela) desires to push again, flip her ache into function, and hopes that this gun violence wouldn’t occur to a different household. We thought we’d attempt to do one thing fast.”
Recognizing the daunting activity forward, Gandbhir introduced in her personal editor, Viridiana Lieberman. “We began collectively and made the dedication to stay within the physique digital camera footage,” stated Gandbhir. “The physique digital camera footage is plain. There’s no reporter on the bottom. I’m not on the bottom. We’re not there influencing issues, on this time interval the place individuals are consistently questioning the media, and what bias there may be. Positive, you could have the cops who’re an establishment in themselves, however that is an interplay freed from a journalist being there. It’s simply what occurred, proper? So we felt that for an viewers, the footage could be plain.”
What the filmmakers had been capable of do was recreate two years of incidents main as much as the crime. “These crimes sadly occur like each week,” Gandbhir stated. “You get gun violence, however you solely see the aftermath. You by no means get to see the neighborhood as they had been earlier than, in such element. And once more, police physique digital camera footage is for individuals of colour: it’s a violent software of the state, proper? It’s usually used to criminalize us, dehumanize us. It’s used for surveillance. It’s used to guard the police. However I needed to subvert that.”
The film, considerably surprisingly, reveals a multi-racial Florida neighborhood elevating youngsters collectively, largely in concord, apart from the one single white girl who retains calling the cops. “You do see this in Florida,” stated Gandbhir, “having this social community, a security community for his or her youngsters. You see the daddy who says, ‘I deal with all these children like they’re my very own,’ the mom who says, when the cop (asks), ‘Which child is yours?’ she (says), ‘They’re all mine.’ You see the youngsters are protected. They really feel protected. They really feel safe. They know that they’ve a number of mother and father watching out for them. … It’s not a rich neighborhood by any means. However once more, that security community the place the youngsters can simply play protected on the street.”
And “The Good Neighbor” reveals the cops in a southern state behaving in comparatively benign, empathetic methods. “The difficulty of the police is fascinating, as a result of it evokes various things for various individuals,” stated Gandbhir. “The police, we don’t see them are available weapons blazing, beating individuals or something. However they by no means see Susan as a menace. Susan weaponized her race and privilege, and she or he tried to weaponize the police in opposition to the neighborhood. Susan used hate speech in opposition to youngsters. She waved a gun at them. She was consistently harassing and threatening her neighbors. She referred to as the police. She saved abusing the 911 emergency providers. By the third time she referred to as, she ought to have been flagged, proper? They simply handled her as this nuisance.”
Whereas the police put in an terrible lot of time on these calls, “they didn’t shield the neighborhood from her,” stated Gandbhir. “They didn’t inform the neighborhood what they may do: you may additionally file harassment prices in opposition to her. They didn’t inform Susan: ‘Your habits is definitely inappropriate, your habits is threatening. It’s good to cease.’ The police usually are not educated in mediation. They’re educated to cope with crime. And if they may not handle it, then the social staff ought to have been referred to as in. However as a substitute, they left it to fester, despite the fact that Susan additionally confirmed erratic habits. She drove her truck right into a gate a number of occasions, then claimed that she had a panic assault. And but, she was capable of purchase two weapons. What we see is that the system failed the neighborhood, nevertheless it additionally failed Susan. It didn’t save her from herself. She’s in jail for nearly the remainder of her life due to this. The police had been sort, nearly all of them had been well mannered, as people. Nevertheless it’s the system. The system just isn’t outfitted. The system failed.”
What would Gandbhir change? Amongst different issues, the Stand Your Floor legal guidelines that led to the loss of life of Trayvon Martin and other people capturing strangers approaching their entrance door. “Individuals are emboldened by this regulation,” stated Gandbhir. “They primarily commit crimes after which declare that they had been afraid of their life. And notably for Black and Brown people who’re so usually criminalized and perceived as a menace as a consequence of implicit bias, racism, that makes it actually harmful. And the legal guidelines exist in several types throughout about 38 states below the Fort Doctrine: You could have the best to guard your fortress. However sadly, like so many issues on this nation, reform is deeply wanted.”
The movie avoids labeling Susan Lorincz as “loopy” or “mentally in poor health.” “There was a psychiatric evaluation of her previous to the trial to see if psychological sickness performed into her committing this crime,” stated Gandbhir. “They discovered there was none. The choose dominated that she shot extra out of anger than concern. We’re cautious across the psychological sickness factor, as a result of the bulk of people that have psychological sickness hurt nobody. Usually, when individuals commit violent crimes, that’s raised, ‘Oh, the particular person is mentally in poor health.’ Nevertheless it was not an element within the case.”
So her aberrant habits was anxiety-driven? “The choose dominated that he gave her 5 years off as a result of he thought she might have had some PTSD from a traumatic childhood,” stated Gandbhir. “You possibly can see this within the trial. She’d by no means dedicated against the law earlier than of that gravity. So the utmost is 30 years. She bought 5 years off for manslaughter.”
There’s some supplemental new footage within the movie to offer the viewers a relaxation. “We shot some stuff on the bottom, for positive, once we had been first there,” stated Gandbhir. “We shot some vigils. However we didn’t do sit-down interviews. We shot B roll, and below that we put the police or detective interviews. These had been meant to be interstitials, to offer individuals a break, as a result of the physique digital camera footage is relentless. And we would have liked the neighborhood to weigh in. There’s quite a lot of Susan, clearly, and her complaints, and there’s a few of Ajike, however with a view to get the total image, the neighborhood was actually essential. So we needed them to have a voice.”
When Netflix picked up “The Good Neighbor” out of Sundance, after they recouped their prices, the filmmakers put the lion’s share of the licensing payment right into a fund for Diaz and the youngsters. “We’d like a groundswell round this subject,” stated Gandbhir. “We’d like a world viewers. I made the movie to be a bit of artwork, however I’m hoping to encourage individuals to take motion.”
Will the movie set a brand new narrative video pattern, very similar to the Oscar-nominated quick “Incident” and even the fictional scripted “Adolescence”? “We’re dwelling in a world the place it’s acquainted,” she stated. “You take a look at Tiktok, you take a look at all of the social media, it’s all user-generated content material, proper? We stay in a world the place it isn’t simply that cinema displays the world and the world displays artwork. We’re like cinema. Actually, on this doc style, they’ll be demanding extra as we now have perhaps set a pattern in that means, nevertheless it’s one thing that exists throughout us.”
“The Good Neighbor” is now streaming on Netflix.
Subsequent up: For the collection “Katrina: Come Hell or Excessive Water,” which has performed properly on Netflix, Gandbhir and Spike Lee each directed episodes. And a brief simply got here out on HBO: “The Satan Is Busy,” partnered with Soledad O’Brien productions.