The Perfect Neighbor

“We Have to Think Deeply about Community Policing”: Geeta Gandbhir on The Perfect Neighbor

Geeta Gandbhir’s The Perfect Neighbor, which premiered in the US Documentary section of this year’s Sundance, is likely one of the first feature docs primarily composed of police body camera footage. Sifting through footage with editor Viridiana Liberman (The Sentence), Gandbhir builds out a suspenseful and heartbreaking portrait of neighborly violence in a close-knit Central Florida community, after white woman Susan Lorincz fatally shot Ajike Owens—Gandbhir’s sister-in-law’s best friend, though Gandbhir didn’t know Owens personally. Given the world context of a déjà vu US regime, the ongoing reverberations of Black Lives Matter and the steady bulldozing with anti-democratic and dangerous legislation […]
by Ritesh Mehta on Jan 27, 2025
Sundance 2025: The Perfect Neighbor, Sly Lives

Stagnation (long-term) and change (imminent) hang over this year’s Sundance. In 2027, the festival will relocate to one of three finalist sites—potentially still a Salt Lake City/Park City split, with the balance of power now reversed between the latter and former, through the rumor vine says Cincinnati or Boulder are more likely. (Please, lord, deliver us unto the midwest or thereabouts.) A Variety article headlined “Sundance in Cincinnati? Hollywood Worries Film Festival Won’t Be the Same Without Park City” actually reports nothing of the sort; the voices regretting Sundance’s imminent departure to a less demanding altitude come from two Utah […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 24, 2025
“Something Dangerous is Always Lurking Just Beneath the Surface” | Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor

Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? Our film is set in Ocala, Florida, just a 40-minute drive from Orlando—a place where beauty and stark contradictions are in constant tension. On one side, you have sprawling, wealthy horse farms and ranches; on the other, economically vulnerable communities living in close proximity to these affluent areas. The neighborhood at the heart of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 24, 2025

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