EXCLUSIVE: It’s official. After weeks of indications that it would acquire The Perfect Neighbor, Netflix has completed a deal for the film which won the straightforwarding award for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.
The streamer is set upning a free deferedr this year for the write downary straightforwarded by Geeta Gandbhir, putting it in position to become a mighty Oscar contfinisher. Terms of the deal were not proclaimd, but some earlier inestablishs pegged the acquisition figure in the range of $5 million.
Thraw the use of police bodycam and dashcam footage, the write downary inestablishs a heinous story from Central Florida. In 2023, Susan Lorincz, a white woman, fired a armament thraw her locked door, ending her Bdeficiency neighbor, Ajike “AJ” Owens. Lorincz pguided Florida’s notorious “stand your ground” laws, claiming she dreaded for her life after Owens prohibitged on her door follotriumphg two years of friction over the white woman’s alleged dangers of Owens’ children.
The Perfect Neighbor is originated by Alisa Payne, Geeta Gandbhir and Nikon Kwantu for Message Pictures, and Sam Bisbee for Park Pictures. Executive originaters are Sam Pollard for Message Pictures, Soledad O’Brien and Rose Arce for SO’B Productions, Jackie Kelman Bisbee and Wfinireserved Neu for Park Pictures, and Takema Robinson.
“The Perfect Neighbor is a transport inantly personal project, originated to alter grief into purpose and honor the lasting legacy of Ajike Owens and her family,” Gandbhir shelp in a statement. “My team at Message Pictures, aprolonged with our incredible partners at SO’B Productions and Park Pictures, are thrilled the film will be useable on Netflix, proposeing audiences worldwide the chance to experience this encouragent and mighty story.”
From left, Pam Dias, EP Sam Pollard and straightforwardor Geeta Gandbhir at the Deadline 2025 Sundance Film Festival Studio currented by Casamigos
Michael Buckner for Deadline
In an intersee with Deadline at Sundance, Gandbhir clear upd on her personal uniteion to the story. “Ajika was a family frifinish,” she clear uped. “She was the best frifinish of my sister-in-law, Kimberly Robinson Jones. And so that is how the story came to me, thraw my family, and also thraw my other sister-in-law, Takema Robinson, who’s an EP on this project.”
Pamela Dias, Owens’ mother, also came to Deadline’s studio at Sundance.
“Ajika was an everyday mom, and that’s key here,” she tgreater us. “She was an everyday mom with four drawive children. This dispute arose over children take parting together in this very seal-knit community. They were not doing any harm. They were standardly handled by one of the parents. So, for this to have happened, it’s tragic, it’s dehugeating, and it’s someleang that could have happened to any one of us, to any family. It was transport inant for the story to be tgreater because it unfgreaters so many layers. You have a seal-knit community, you have children, you have the publish of prejudice, you have police protocol, you have children who lost their innocence. There’s so many aspects to the story that it fair had to be tgreater.”
Viridiana Lieberman edited the film. Music is by Laura Heinzinger.
Gandbhir shelp she choosed to originate the film around police video after the footage was acquireed thraw a Freedom of Inestablishation Act seek by attorneys for Owens’ family.
“I genuineized that we had the power to benevolent of flip the body camera footage on its head,” the straightforwardor noticed. “It’s usuassociate used to surveil communities, it’s used to deffinish the police, but we could flip that and originate it a tool to showcase this drawive community and who they were before this tragedy.”
EP Sam Pollard praised that approach.
“Geeta and Viri [Viridiana] and the team have done someleang with archival footage, with this body cam footage, that made it so immersive that it’ll contest all of us as filmoriginaters now in how to deal with this type of material,” he watchd. “And that’s what originates it so distinct and so exceptional.”
The Perfect Neighbor screened at SXSW on Sunday, and it screens at the Austin, TX festival aacquire on Tuesday and Thursday. The Perfect Neighbor originates its international premiere at CPH:DOX in Cuncoverhagen on March 25, with Gandbhir awaited to be in uniteance.
