“The Perfect Neighbor” delivers a harrowing look at how a small disagreement leads to tragedy.
Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary is screening all weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. It follows the murder of Ajike Owens, a young Black mother of four who was shot and killed by her neighbor, Susan Lorincz.
Gandbhir uses police bodycam footage to tell the story of how over a period of time, a neighborhood dispute involving children playing in a nearby yard slowly escalates to Owens’ murder.
Gandbhir and broadcast journalist and executive producer Soledad O’Brien sat down over Zoom to discuss how the documentary came together and the implications of Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws and gun regulations.
Geeta, what made this a “must-tell” story for you?
GEETA GANDBHIR: This story came to me through my family. Ajike Owens was my sister-in-law’s best friend. When this happened, Takema Robinson, who is also an executive producer came to us and told us what had happened. It was Florida, and Susan wasn’t immediately arrested. She was detained and released. They were concerned about the issues of her claiming Stand Your Ground. So my partner, Nikon Kwantu, also a producer, went down and we began filming to get the story out and try to get attention to the story.
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Stand Your Ground has been weaponized against Black and brown people in this country, so that was a big concern to us. In the process of being on the ground, Benjamin Crump’s team came on board, and the lawyer, Anthony Thomas, who was working with the family, discovered all this footage.
They sued the police, made public records requests and got all the materials released and the incidents that led up to this. We realized that this was the film. You so often see the aftermath of incidents like this, you know, then there’s far too many, but you rarely see the lead-up. How did this escalate into this terrible violence and the loss of life?
Soledad, what about this story made you want to get involved as an executive producer, and why does this need to be out in the world?
SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: Geeta is an incredible filmmaker. So she asks for anything, and the answer is “yes,” before she even gets a sentence out of her mouth. But I think this story was probably the perfect example of the chaos of Stand Your Ground laws. It spells out who should not have access to a gun, and who should not be able to hide behind a law that, although it was pitched as something that would help bring down homicides and gun violence, did the exact opposite. And if you think at this moment, that those laws are going to diminish — no, they won’t. We know President Trump has said he’s going to roll back any gun laws for firearms protections. We’re at a moment in time where this is exactly the conversation around what has made it more possible to kill people. These laws make it easier to kill people. Period.
The opportunity to investigate that with the body cam footage and see the triviality of the conflict. I think this story is a great way to show an audience how important these laws are, what’s happening behind these laws at this moment, and what could be coming down the pike at us.
What was it like as a filmmaker to have access to that body cam footage, edit it and weave it all together?
GANDBHIR: You see Susan’s interactions with the police over two years. You see this trail and the developments as they occur, and the issue gets worse. You see the inability and the helplessness of law enforcement to really manage it or to even see her as a threat. But you also see this beautiful, diverse and close-knit community who are taking care of each other’s kids. Susan is this outlier, in a way that she is this looming threat that keeps encroaching and getting closer and closer, and there is no way to mitigate it.
She waved a gun at the kids, but the community did not call the police again, probably because of long-standing issues of mistrust. And in the footage was this incredible process of discovery because you get to meet the community, you understand the police officers’ perspective, and you meet Susan.
It is not 100% body camera footage, but it allowed us a window in that, I think oftentimes you don’t get to see, you know, just the events as they unfolded, and we are witnessing that.
Were you still making the documentary while the trial was going on?
GANDBHIR: We were working on this film up until the sentencing. So there were times when we thought, do we want to interweave the trial? Does it need it? But I felt like the community told its story. I didn’t want to interrupt the build-up towards this terrible, incredibly violent and tragic incident.
What is the call to action that you want audiences to walk away with from this?
O’BRIEN: It’s about bringing the story to a really wide audience. It’s so important. You get to watch the absolute unraveling of a person with tragic consequences for everybody. Every single person loses. The goal is always to make sure that the story gets seen because I think it really will resonate with everybody, no matter where they lie on a political spectrum or where they lie geographically in the country. It speaks to everybody.
GANDBHIR: One of the last things she said to her mom was, “One day everybody’s gonna know my name. That is the mission. We never wanted it to be this way, but we feel like she could leave a legacy and make a change in the world if everyone knows her name, and change is impacted as a result.