We’ve seen police cam footage on many true crime reveals. However we haven’t seen a film like “The Excellent Neighbor,” which fits 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 mentioned final week on Zoom. Already, the movie has earned six nominations for the Critics Selection Documentary Awards, in addition to a spot on the Oscar-predictive DOC NYC Brief Record.
When Gandbhir first came upon concerning the homicide of Ocala, Florida resident Ajike “AJ” Shantrell Owens, 35, who left 4 kids motherless on June 2, 2023 when her white neighbor, Susan Lorincz, shot and killed her, Gandbhir was mourning a household buddy.
“It was grief work for us,” she mentioned. “It was my method 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 expertise, frankly, and I don’t know learn how to do anything, was what I needed to provide the household, and likewise a method 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 youngsters 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 Folks: The Election of Barack Obama”), she typically shared directing credit score. Not this time.
When Gandbhir first acquired her fingers on the video footage in September 2023, it was overwhelming. “All the fabric that pertained to the case got here to us by way of 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 interviews, 911 calls from each Susan and the neighborhood.
“It got here in a jumble,” mentioned Gandbhir. “It was not organized in any method. I took it upon myself to string it out. We have been in a position to watch by way of it in items, however we didn’t perceive what number of police have been on scene. Generally there have been two, typically 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 a criminal offense 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 acquired the footage in September,” she mentioned. “By October, which is once I had strung it out: ‘Holy shit, we may do that.’”
Gandbhir and fellow producer Nikon Kwantu each noticed learn how to use the police cam footage: “It functioned inadvertently, like multi-camera,” she mentioned. “One would break up off and discuss to this individual, one other would break up off and discuss to that individual. And, we’ve all been obsessive about movies like ‘Paranormal Exercise’ or ‘Cloverfield’ or ‘The Blair Witch Undertaking,’ the place it’s that first-person POV. It appeared immersive. After these two months: ‘There’s a movie. I understand how to make this.’”
First Gandbhir acquired permission from Ajike Owens’ mom, Pamela Diaz. “She needed her daughter’s identify to not be forgotten. She takes numerous power from Mamie Until, Emmett Until’s mom, who opened the casket on the funeral for him after he was lynched, and instructed the reporters to come back and take photos, as a result of she actually needed the world to know what occurred to her child,” she mentioned. “[Pamela] needs 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 reside within the physique digital camera footage,” mentioned Gandbhir. “The physique digital camera footage is simple. 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 continually questioning the media, and what bias there is perhaps. Certain, you’ve gotten 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 simple.”
What the filmmakers have been in a position to do was recreate two years of incidents main as much as the crime. “These crimes sadly occur like each week,” Gandbhir mentioned. “You get gun violence, however you solely see the aftermath. You by no means get to see the neighborhood as they have been earlier than, in such element. And once more, police physique digital camera footage is for individuals of colour: it’s a violent instrument of the state, proper? It’s typically 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 kids collectively, principally in concord, aside from the one single white lady who retains calling the cops. “You do see this in Florida,” mentioned Gandbhir, “having this social community, a security community for his or her kids. You see the daddy who says, ‘I handle all these youngsters 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 children are secure. They really feel secure. They really feel safe. They know that they’ve a number of dad and mom watching out for them. … It’s not a rich neighborhood by any means. However once more, that security community the place the children can simply play secure on the street.”
And “The Excellent Neighbor” reveals the cops in a southern state behaving in comparatively benign, empathetic methods. “The problem of the police is fascinating, as a result of it evokes various things for various individuals,” mentioned 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 risk. Susan weaponized her race and privilege, and she or he tried to weaponize the police towards the neighborhood. Susan used hate speech towards kids. She waved a gun at them. She was continually harassing and threatening her neighbors. She referred to as the police. She stored abusing the 911 emergency companies. By the third time she referred to as, she ought to have been flagged, proper? They only handled her as this nuisance.”
Whereas the police put in an terrible lot of time on these calls, “they didn’t defend the neighborhood from her,” mentioned Gandbhir. “They didn’t inform the neighborhood what they might do: you possibly can additionally file harassment expenses towards her. They didn’t inform Susan: ‘Your conduct is definitely inappropriate, your conduct is threatening. It’s good to cease.’ The police will not be educated in mediation. They’re educated to cope with crime. And if they might not handle it, then the social staff ought to have been referred to as in. However as an alternative, they left it to fester, though Susan additionally confirmed erratic conduct. She drove her truck right into a gate a number of instances, then claimed that she had a panic assault. And but, she was in a position to purchase two weapons. What we see is that the system failed the neighborhood, but it surely 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 have been sort, nearly all of them have been well mannered, as people. Nevertheless it’s the system. The system isn’t geared up. The system failed.”
What would Gandbhir change? Amongst different issues, the Stand Your Floor legal guidelines that led to the dying of Trayvon Martin and folks capturing strangers approaching their entrance door. “Individuals are emboldened by this regulation,” mentioned Gandbhir. “They basically commit crimes after which declare that they have been scared of their life. And notably for Black and Brown of us who’re so typically criminalized and perceived as a risk as a result of implicit bias, racism, that makes it actually harmful. And the legal guidelines exist in numerous kinds throughout about 38 states beneath the Fortress Doctrine: You have got the precise to guard your citadel. However sadly, like so many issues on this nation, reform is deeply wanted.”
The movie avoids labeling Susan Lorincz as “loopy” or “mentally unwell.” “There was a psychiatric evaluation of her previous to the trial to see if psychological sickness performed into her committing this crime,” mentioned Gandbhir. “They discovered there was none. The decide dominated that she shot extra out of anger than worry. We’re cautious across the psychological sickness factor, as a result of the bulk of people that have psychological sickness hurt nobody. Typically, when individuals commit violent crimes, that’s raised, ‘Oh, the individual is mentally unwell.’ Nevertheless it was not an element within the case.”
So her aberrant conduct was anxiety-driven? “The decide dominated that he gave her 5 years off as a result of he thought she could have had some PTSD from a traumatic childhood,” mentioned Gandbhir. “You’ll be able to see this within the trial. She’d by no means dedicated a criminal offense earlier than of that, of that gravity. So the utmost is 30 years. She acquired 5 years off for manslaughter.”
There may be some supplemental new footage within the movie to present the viewers a relaxation. “We shot some some stuff on the bottom, for positive, once we have been first there,” mentioned Gandbhir. “We shot some vigils. However we didn’t do sit down interviews. We shot B roll, and beneath that we put the police or detective interviews. These have been meant to be interstitials, to present 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 may be numerous 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 necessary. So we needed them to have a voice.”
When Netflix picked up “The Excellent Neighbor” out of Sundance, after they recouped their prices, the filmmakers put the lion’s share of the licensing price right into a fund for Diaz and the children. “We’d like a groundswell round this concern,” mentioned Gandbhir. “We’d like a world viewers. I made the movie to be a chunk of artwork, however I’m hoping to encourage individuals to take motion.”
Will the movie set a brand new narrative video development, very like the Oscar-nominated quick “Incident” and even the fictional scripted “Adolescence”? “We’re residing in a world the place it’s acquainted,” she mentioned. “You have a look at Tiktok, you have a look at all of the social media, it’s all user-generated content material, proper? We reside in a world the place it isn’t simply that cinema displays the world and the world displays artwork. We’re like cinema. Definitely, on this doc style, they’ll be demanding extra as we now have possibly set a development in that method, but it surely’s one thing that exists throughout us.”
“The Excellent Neighbor” is now streaming on Netflix.
Subsequent up: For the sequence “Katrina: Come Hell or Excessive Water,” which has performed effectively 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.
