EXCLUSIVE: It’s official. After weeks of indications that it will purchase The Excellent Neighbor, Netflix has finalized a deal for the movie which gained the directing award for U.S. Documentary on the Sundance Movie Pageant.
The streamer is planning a launch later this 12 months for the documentary directed by Geeta Gandbhir, placing it in place to change into a powerful Oscar contender. Phrases of the deal weren’t introduced, however some earlier studies pegged the acquisition determine within the vary of $5 million.
By using police bodycam and dashcam footage, the documentary tells a heinous story from Central Florida. In 2023, Susan Lorincz, a white lady, fired a gun by way of her locked door, killing her Black neighbor, Ajike “AJ” Owens. Lorincz invoked Florida’s infamous “stand your floor” legal guidelines, claiming she feared for her life after Owens banged on her door following two years of friction over the white lady’s alleged harassment of Owens’ youngsters.
The Excellent Neighbor is produced by Alisa Payne, Geeta Gandbhir and Nikon Kwantu for Message Footage, and Sam Bisbee for Park Footage. Govt producers are Sam Pollard for Message Footage, Soledad O’Brien and Rose Arce for SO’B Productions, Jackie Kelman Bisbee and Wendy Neu for Park Footage, and Takema Robinson.
“The Excellent Neighbor is a deeply private undertaking, created to remodel grief into objective and honor the lasting legacy of Ajike Owens and her household,” Gandbhir mentioned in a press release. “My staff at Message Footage, together with our unimaginable companions at SO’B Productions and Park Footage, are thrilled the movie will probably be accessible on Netflix, providing audiences worldwide the possibility to expertise this pressing and highly effective story.”
From left, Pam Dias, EP Sam Pollard and director Geeta Gandbhir on the Deadline 2025 Sundance Movie Pageant Studio introduced by Casamigos
Michael Buckner for Deadline
In an interview with Deadline at Sundance, Gandbhir elaborated on her private connection to the story. “Ajika was a household good friend,” she defined. “She was the most effective good friend of my sister-in-law, Kimberly Robinson Jones. And so that’s how the story got here to me, by way of my household, and in addition by way of my different sister-in-law, Takema Robinson, who’s an EP on this undertaking.”
Pamela Dias, Owens’ mom, additionally got here to Deadline’s studio at Sundance.
“Ajika was an on a regular basis mother, and that’s key right here,” she informed us. “She was an on a regular basis mother with 4 stunning youngsters. This dispute arose over youngsters enjoying collectively on this very close-knit neighborhood. They weren’t doing any hurt. They have been typically supervised by one of many mother and father. So, for this to have occurred, it’s tragic, it’s devastating, and it’s one thing that would have occurred to any considered one of us, to any household. It was vital for the story to be informed as a result of it unfolds so many layers. You’ve gotten a close-knit neighborhood, you might have youngsters, you might have the problem of racism, you might have police protocol, you might have youngsters who misplaced their innocence. There’s so many facets to the story that it simply needed to be informed.”
Viridiana Lieberman edited the movie. Music is by Laura Heinzinger.
Gandbhir mentioned she determined to construct the movie round police video after the footage was obtained by way of a Freedom of Data Act request by attorneys for Owens’ household.
“I spotted that we had the facility to sort of flip the physique digital camera footage on its head,” the director famous. “It’s often used to surveil communities, it’s used to defend the police, however we may flip that and make it a software to showcase this stunning neighborhood and who they have been earlier than this tragedy.”
EP Sam Pollard praised that method.
“Geeta and Viri [Viridiana] and the staff have executed one thing with archival footage, with this physique cam footage, that made it so immersive that it’ll problem all of us as filmmakers now in the right way to cope with one of these materials,” he noticed. “And that’s what makes it so distinctive and so particular.”
The Excellent Neighbor screened at SXSW on Sunday, and it screens on the Austin, TX pageant once more on Tuesday and Thursday. The Excellent Neighbor makes its worldwide premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen on March 25, with Gandbhir anticipated to be in attendance.
