¶ Geeta Gandbhir joins the Chuck ToddCast
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¶ "The Perfect Neighbor" isn't a gun story, it's a societal story
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¶ How important is a potential Academy Award for you?
thirty dollars off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code well. One of the more powerful documentaries that you will hear about during the Academy Awards is called The Perfect Neighbor and it is by the film Geeta gandiber Getha Gandibier. My apologies there, and it is first of all, the the film itself is unique because it's the type of
documentary I love best, meaning no talking hits. It is
¶ Awards give you a platform to talk about issues & bring change
a documentary of real footage and it's about a story sadly in my home state of Florida and the standard ground law will come into play here a minute. But it's a story that's more. This is not a gun story. This is a society story. This is a story of race, This is a story of policing. This is a story of how we live together as Americans. And it's incredibly powerful and it couldn't have been done without bodycam footage. So if you haven't seen it, it's on Netflix now.
I highly recommend it. It's powerful, it's disturbing, it's it's it's also heartbreaking. As we were just discussing its grief
¶ Film produced independently, then Netflix gave it a huge platform
and rage, as Geita will tell you, all wrapped up in one and Giza joins me. Now, Gita, how did I do introducing your film?
That was great? Thank you so much for having me.
You're first of all, it's nominated for all sorts of awards. How important is an Academy award to you?
So the Academy Award is a huge honor. I think it's every you know, it's a dream. Honestly, it's a dream and sometimes feels like a pipe dream, you know, in our in our field. But I think what makes it so significant it's that it's our peers who vote right, people that we admire, people that inspire us, our idols, our colleagues, you know, so that community feels so meaningful, and the idea that they choose your film of the many, many, many disturbing films means so much. So that makes it
an incredible honor again a dream. I think beyond that though,
¶ How close did you follow this story in real time?
to all the awards really give us a platform to talk about the issues that and the impact that we want to have goes far beyond the film. We're really hoping for change, that the film will be a vehicle for change. So I think the the there's two things that come into play with the awards. The just the honor of it all, and so grateful that the platform is equally important.
¶ Ajike Owens was a personal friend of Geeta
No, and you know, kudos to Netflix for making you know, for promoting it. Not just there's one thing to just put it on your streamer. It's another thing to actually promoted and make sure people can see it.
Which they could have honestly, And this was an independent film. We made this independently. My team Message Pictures, Park Pictures joined us, SOB Productions also joined us. We were a very small but mighty scrappy team for very little money. We also got some development funding, but the from Peacock, but they chose not to take the film ultimately, so we but use it, you know, small resources. But the Sundance Film Festival accepted the film and really give that platform.
That was our first premiere, and after that Netflix made us an offer. So Netflix took it to the next level again, a global platform.
Look, my head is in two different places. Like one part, I want to talk about the decision to go without a narrator and to use all the body cam footage. On the other hand, I do think we should spend a few minutes on the story itself. Sure, and so I want to begin with there, which is what did you when did you become you know, how closely were you following this story in real time in Marion County, Florida.
¶ There's so much gun violence, individual stories don't break through
You know, I hate to say it, when I watched this, it was a very you know, I knew a little something about the story itself, so I knew I was going to end. But that community, that fight, I've seen that it's a very familiar thing. What was unfamiliar was to see it chronicled, yeah, right in real time, and that's what made it, I think so powerful. But I am curious, what was your familiarity with the story at different points in time while it was unfolding.
Sure, so there is a personal connection to this story because Ajaca Owens was a family friend. So you were involved from the minute that had happened. Unfortunately, from the minute that.
You you knew immediately you were brought in. Did you know about what was happening in that neighborhood before.
She was killed? No, we didn't, and we myself and Mama said, we am talking about myself and my husband,
¶ The production team received body cam footage from family lawyers
who's also a producer on the film that come onto and my teammate message picture is Alisa Payne and Sam Pollard. You're my producing partners. We got a distress call though, from my sister in law who was best friends with Ajaca Owens. And when I say sister in law, she's really my cousin in law. But we culturally don't differentiate like she's We're very close. That's my sister in law.
I've got cousins.
Yeah, exactly so, but just you know, in case anybody wants to, you know, wants to fact check it. Cousin in law. But we got we got a call the night that had happened, and We're immediately on the ground trying to support the family and helping gathering the children and getting Achica's mother into town. And also we were very aware that the story needed to be in the media because without media attention, cases like Ajica's often get
swept under the rung. I mean, there's so much gun violence, unfortunately in our society that it's almost an everyday occurrence. There's another story of somebody getting.
Shot and neighbor dispute with it turning into a deadly gunshot is sadly almost it probably is a daily occurrence.
Daily occurrence, right more or less. So we were because
¶ We usually see the aftermath of shootings, rarely the before footage
we work in media, our team, that's what we felt we could do and how we could help. And Susan was not immediately arrested because of stanyr ground laws. They had to stand your ground investigation, and we have the precedent of the Trayvon Martin case that happened in Florida, so we were deeply concerned that there would be no justice for Ajica. And then about two months later, Susan
was eventually arrested. About two months later, we received the body camera footage from the family lawyers and who we were still involved with the family and again still trying to support the case because we didn't know. Again, we were worried it might languish, you know, it could take years for anything to happen. But the footage came to us and they asked us to go through it. They were like, can you look through it? Is there anything in here for the media? And it was about thirty
hours of material, and I was shocked. I'd never seen that much footage around a case before.
Can I just say, I'm I was oddly impressed with how much there was and how you know, I'm a cynic on this stuff. I assume all these guys are going to turn it off when the real you know, and they there was so much there. It felt real. It felt like I got a real sense of how Marion County Police officers handle these disputes.
Yes, now one percent, and they were there so often because Susan called so often. But I think what struck me is that you got to see in this footage the community as they were before, and it was undeniable. You got to see this beautiful multi racial community living together, loving each other, acting like a big extended family, taking
¶ Needed to understand chronology of body cam footage
care of the kids, you know, and you got to see the kids playing outside, being precocious and funny, and you know, I loved And because there is so much gun violence, we are used to the grieving family. We know the aftermath of what happens, but we never get to see them before. And to me, the story of this community and what they had to go through and how one outlier who was emboldened by Stanley ground laws plus combined with our access to guns, disrupted their whole world.
What did you know? What when did you know you had a film?
Sure? So when when we saw the body camera.
Footage, immediately were like, this is I can do something with that? No?
Because not because what Because like I said, it was thirty hours. It came in a jumble, It came on a thumb drive and there were folders. But there's the cops unintentionally function like multi camera with the you know, with the footage, because sometimes there were two of them unseen.
Sometimes there was a little it could be a little uh, it was a little love. Don't I don't want to say it, you know, sort of like wait what I mean?
¶ Film's tension building compared to Blair Witch & Paranormal Activity
You know it's sort of dizzying, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, But this is again the nature, this is not production footage, right, they just just it's pleas evidence. But I spent about two weeks along with Nikon Kwan two my again my producer and partner, stringing it into a timeline. I used to be an editor, so I pieced it together and synchronized all the footage and the sound,
and also took time to figure out the chronology. And it was once we had the whole thing strung out and we watched it down and we could understand the chronology and what happened, that's when I was like, Aha, the family.
So one of the things I was curious about is that the family attorney immediately asked for body cam footage for every incident that had ever taken place differ in
¶ Racial justice/tension movies can make for a difficult watch
that neighborhood.
Okay, I asked, of course for the court case, that's what they would need, right, So they asked for everything, and what you see in the film is pretty much what we got. What the what the lawyers were given.
There was also some ring whether it's some doorbell cameras or wing cameras as well.
Right, I was part of it also because that was collected as evidence. But I think the thing that to me that struck me was that I felt like the footage played like a horror film. It played to me, I thought of films. I come from a scripted background. Originally I came up with Spike Lee and Sam Pollard.
And actually it had a Jaws vibe to me, the original Jaws, right, which is the you know, the initial Steven Spielberg horror creator of that moment of where you don't see, you don't see the menace, but you know it's coming out there. That's what I felt. Body came, You're just like I had it. I just got the Jaws vibe in that sense because you know it's building up,
¶ Movie doesn't preach, just shows the event & let's audience decide
but you don't know when it's coming, but you know it's coming.
Nobody has said Jaws before. I love that. The references for me were paranormal activity and you know things that used and also the Blair Witch Project, like films that were made sure that was meant to be found footage or you know again CCTV footage, surveillance camera footage. So those were sort of my references, and I wanted to make something that was immersive, that would grip audiences and
hold them. Oftentimes, when we make documentaries, particularly if they're social justice, sometimes people don't want to, you know, they don't want to hear it, like or they're not interested, you know.
I that was Look, I had my wife. I was saying, I'm going to watch this film an internet. She's like, I don't know, Like you know, I know this story. I don't know right, Like because you're right. And that's why I'm like, no, people, you need to see this. You need to see it because it's a groundmaking way
to make a movie. Number one. So there's a technical aspect of this that's I mean, I'm not a voter, but if I were to me, this is why to me, it's an e're the easy winner simply because it's both a technically you've done something new and interesting and different in a basically because we now have all this stuff we didn't. You know, you couldn't have made this with
with Trayvon Martin. It didn't exist. But one of the other no, no, no, and so and then there's the powerful story itself that you tell where you don't have to. You're not trying, You're you're you're helping people get to a place, but you're not preaching. You're not telling people
¶ Footage portrayed a working class, striving community
what should be, what to think. You're just showing you're letting us decide what should be and you're like, that wasn't right.
Thank you for that. Now we trust our audience. I think that was a big part of it. We were are beliefs that we could live in this body camera footage and the you know, the police evidence footage. And there was a couple of thoughts. One was that we didn't want to go back and retraumatize the community by making them relive it again interviewing them. They've they've already been interviewed by detectives, they've lived it, like I didn't
want to to burden them with that. Then the other part of it is we felt the body camera footage was really undeniable. And right now we live in a time where everything the media does is questioned, and with this footage, there was no film crew on the ground, right there was We were not there directing anything. So again, because it is police evidence, you see things exactly as they happened, no one, there was no outside journalist influencing,
So I think that makes it undeniable to audiences. And also you can see in this footage again how this community was oftentimes after after people of color in particular, are victimized after a crime happens to us. We are often criminalized and our children are adultified. And we felt in the footage again the police did not mean to capture this, but they did that. Again. This community, this incredible community, and this like you have the mother who says,
¶ Everyone knows the Susan Lorincz, "get off my lawn" type character
you know, all these kids, they're all mine, and the father comes out and is like, I look out for these kids like they're my own. You see in footage, even footage that Susan shot, the adults playing football with the kids like it was and the kids are outside having like you know, healthy connected fun.
And I think what all of our political leaders say, Hey, kids seem to be outside more, not in front of their screens. Right, these kids were outside.
They were outside, and I think and also you saw a community of upstanders like Susan the two neighbors, and it wasn't It's interesting because even though it is about race, and Susan tried to weaponize race. You know, you see the two neighbors that AA that lived on either side of Ochica or white women and were complete upstanders.
¶ No understanding of why Susan Lorincz was so broken as a person
What I saw it as is this is why it's a familiar community to me in Florida. There are a lot of this is just a working class middle sort of what i've working class, you know, strivers is what I would call it, right, working crash driver community who like don't want to live in an apartment complex with their kids, want their kids to have more of a of a of a of a you know, sort of that whatever whatever, the idealized version of growing up in
a neighborhood and all that stuff. And they're and you know, these communities are all over Florida. It's sort of what makes Florida an attractive melting pot to many people and why they move. And it's affordable.
It's the best of us. It's really that's the American dream. It's the best of us, right like a place where and with that strong social network. I think Susan, on the other hand, is sort of represents a microcosm of all the bills that are plaguing our society. She kind of holds the marita.
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¶ Lorincz was the only woman in the neighborhood that complained to police
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¶ This didn't feel like manslaughter, it felt pre-meditated
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¶ Prosecutors felt a manslaughter charge would be easier to convict
have been attempts to sort of portray that character is what I would call it right, we know this person exists, This person lived in my neighborhood. We all had a person like this, right, and you don't quite know what they were, right. Ye had the Clint Eastwood movie where he's the old man, uh boy Tornado or something like that, where grand grandson, grand Tarino.
That's right.
And then I was thinking of the that Michael Douglas movie right falling Down whatever, you know, the whole white grievance,
¶ Hope DeSantis understands the damage stand your ground laws cause
white rage. Right. She she felt like a very familiar character, right that we'd seen portrayed. But here was here here I think there's there's this assumption that maybe these folks no longer exist.
No, well, she very very much must exist.
I'm curious, did you want to what did you? I was? I wanted to know more of like how did she become so broken? She's broken, there's no doubt she's broken. We don't know what's it.
We don't know this. You know, she moved into the neighborhood two years before everything happened, and we don't have much of her backstory, you know, Nor did we want to speculate on it.
No, I get that too, but it's clear she some somebody something something, She's broken. And you know, I don't know who knows when it happened, right, might have happened years ago or two years ago.
You might just be racist though until.
Well, and that's the thing she got broken early. Then. Yeah, you know, I always say you, you know, you have to be raised a racist.
Uh huh.
I do believe that. I don't think because kids are not racist unless they're caught it now.
And I appreciate you thinking of that as broken, because yeah,
¶ If there was no body camera footage, Susan could have walked
it should be thought of that way. But I think I was the one thing I wanted to say, though, is that she also seemed to be someone who absorbed a lot of the rhetoric that is coming from the top down today in our country, which is manufactured fear like weaponized racism again, and that those kind of things combined with her access to weapons.
Plus we'll think about those law What was this the incident in Saint Louis in Sance, Absolutely it was about three years ago where the guy just shot and then was the kid who went to the wrong door. It was going to go It happened more.
It happened recently. There was a woman who was supposed to clean someone's house and came to the door and the man shutter the wrong house, like it is, this idea, but the manufactured fear is a tool to divide us, right, and when we fear our neighbors, when we like again, then we're okay with them being kidnapped and put in detention centers. Right, Like it's it's used the idea, and it allows an authoritarian government to say things like, noah, we'll protect you. We just need to get rid of
these people over here. So she seemed to be a symptom of all those societal ills.
And that is why, in some ways I wanted to know more, like is she just sitting on her lounge
¶ Police bodycams should be on at all times to prevent distortion of truth
chair watching one feed of stuff? And you know, is her information ecosystem very blinder oriented right now? You know? But it struck me she never had anybody with her.
Yeah, there at once, now, when she was moving out of the house, that was her sister. There was a woman there who was her sister. But other than that that was that, we didn't see much of anybody near her. But what's interesting, like I said, is there were other older women. There was another woman who was her neighbor who appears in that same scene, who is an older woman who similarly lives in that neighborhood. But she was the only one. That is what is so interesting. She
¶ Bodycam footage is a double edged sword, can be used for surveillance
is the only one who ever complained.
Right, which tells you, you know, says more about.
Her than anything else, and anything else, you.
Know, the try to me all, you know, your documentary sort of makes the case that in some ways this was a form of premeditation. Now we can debate that. I get that that there's the letter of the law and premeditation, but this was not manslaughter. And I think we all know that. And yet I understand that the state of Florida passed a law that tied the hands of those prosecutors.
Yeah, but I think also I will say this, I think the prosecution, from what happened in the Trayvon Martin
¶ Original footage included protests, funerals & B-roll of the neighborhood
case and others, I think they went for the lowest hanging fruit as well.
Because I wanted a conviction.
They wanted a conviction, and with Trayvon Martin, George Imermann walked in the charge's murder. So I think with manslaughter and Florida, manslaughter carries up to forty years, sorry, thirty years. Manslaughter carries thirty years. So I felt I feel that they thought they could get a conviction with manslaughter and that they she would serve, she would still end up with a long.
Sentence effectively life. Effectively, she was, you know, going to be incarcerated for right.
Yeah, for a sixty years old.
Right yeah, porty.
You know, as she ended up with twenty five. She had not committed any other violent crime before, so I think so. But the judge gave her the maximum that he could and that was twenty five. So she will be if you know again, where she to serve the entire sentence, she would be eighty five once she gets out.
So let's say Governor Desantists watches this film. What do you hope he takes away?
I hope he takes away the damage laws that Standard Ground do to communities. I hope he takes away the fact that we need gun control, that that in Florida you can buy a gun like you can buy a toaster or a microwave. And there's a point you see in the film where Susan is clearly behaving erratically and
there should have been a question around her buying. Again, I also hope that folks take away Dessantas included how policing works and how they could have and should have caught Susan, you know, and seeing her as a threat
¶ Neighbors had a very visceral reaction to the film, but did find it therapeutic
earlier on instead of just treating her like a nuisance. But I think because they the police again were not equipped to handle it. But they also brought there, you know, they brought their own biases to the scene, and she was able to weaponize them.
Well, it's interesting with them, you know, it was interesting to hear how the officers saying, look, I'm going to believe you, and I'm going to believe them. I remember that was like it stuck out at me, and it's like it it was a reminder of why it's important for all of this to be on tape. Yes, all right, and again I go back. You and I both know that if this happens ten years ago, there's every chance in the world she's never charged.
Oh and if there was no footage, I don't know that she would be charged. If you didn't see her erratic, you know, her behavior, calling the cops again and again and again, and if you didn't hear the community side of the story, right this, Yeah, she could have walked And this is we honestly, we didn't until the very end, we had that in our hearts like we were. We were like, she's probably going to get off, Like it's no way, it's not possible. I was.
This is the story of the twentieth century. In these incidents, they all walk, it felt like almost all the time. Yeah, you know, this is why you know, I sit here and it's like it's an imperfect body camera footage is imperfect on all those things, but it's better.
And it's also incredibly relevant today when you think about what's happening in Minnesota, when we were living in a
¶ Having body camera footage could have prevented historical race riots
time where we have a government who will distort the truth at any given moment freely, has no no moral compass around doing that. You know, with the murders that have happened in Minnesota, where I says murdered a number of people, is in.
Fact that we're debating whether or not they should have body cameras I know, and they're like, well, we'll put them on, but we want to be able to could no, no, no, We're putting that in your hands of deciding when those cameras go on enough.
You need it at all, It should be on it all times, because because like I said, there's there is clearly audacity, you know of the powers that be, They like again, they feel they can distort the truth at any given moment to their advantage. And I think with and body camera is still only in eight states, it's only required in eight states that law enforcement wear it,
And it could not be more critical right now. And it's it is a double edged sword for communities of color because it's also a tool of surveillance.
And no, look, I think about this a lot, you know, when it comes to privacy, but you and I Aron, I fear that people younger than us have like, don't don't view it as surveillance.
It's surveillance, yeah, and and it absolutely is. So it's a double edged sword, particularly for vulnerable, the most vulnerable. But I think right now, the particularly with the case of Ice and what is happening and with who we have in power, it is absolutely needed all law enforcement and government agents should be required to wear it, is
¶ The ultimate hope is to eradicate "stand your ground" laws
my opinion.
A few sort of technical things about doing the film. Every once in a while you would have body camera audio and then it would just did you do sort of just sort of almost file footage of the neighborhood once or something? Yes, So we did.
There was we did shoot bee role of the neighborhood. So some of the things we shot, we shot vigils, we shot protests, the funeral, and we shot bee role of the neighborhood. And some of that was for we shot originally as to give to media to share with news, because we wanted news organizations to to to talk about
what was happening. And then some of it we shot afterwards just as part of the film so that we could again sort of create texture and also people could see what the neighborhood looked like.
What was the Was it a struggle to get everybody
¶ There's power in telling a true story with unscripted footage
to agree to allow their likeness to be used.
No, what's so interesting is that that community was really like a family. We the body camera footage, we had to sort of work in reverse and try and find people I'd like, look at them and get them identified and then find them. At some of the people. It's interesting some people came to us redacted by the police, like some of the footage the police had already we had already redacted.
And interesting, why would they I think that was.
Us to redact all of it? I see it didn't happen, so we so then, but if there were people that we could not find, particularly children, we would.
Just redacted it.
We redacted it.
So that's so any of the blurred faces were not people that said no, you can't do this. It was more of the other way.
It was more it was more people we can fund. But there were one or two people who were worried about it, and we wanted to We were respectful of them, of course. I think though for the most part, the community stood behind what we were doing. Like they really loved each other and they we actually showed the film to them before it aired on Netflix, and it was
very hard. They had a very visceral reaction to it, but they afterwards they they kind of talked through it and with each other and you know, had a lot of memories. I think it was I think ultimately they said it was therapeutic and that they wanted it out in the world because they understood what we were doing, and they said no other community should have to go through that. There is only one family left on that block. Everyone else has left.
They left, they moved.
How do you stay? And that's how So it's like the ripple effect.
What's your kids?
Yeah, the ripple effect is enormous and that so that beautiful communal again unity where kids came from all the neighboring streets to play on that one block decimated.
Because they had the empty grass field. Every neighborhood has that one and it yes there said but so, so you're not sure. I don't know who owned it.
Actually it belonged to the neighbor. It belonged to Susan's neighbor who allowed them to play there.
Who had said yes, yea.
So it was often out there with them like it was. It was they had permission to be there.
So, you know, I just think about you know, I
¶ Ajike Owens was a bright young woman with a promising future
I often believe that it was a it was helpful that I grew up in Miami. When I grew up in Miami. I grew up in Miami in the in the seventies and eighties, and we went through three race riots in the eighties, all of which might not have happened if there had been body camera footage. You know, I was just thinking about just that aspect, like, you know, we ripped. Now, it's Miami a beautiful place today in some ways because of the pain we all had to
go through in the eighties. I think there is there you could make a case that in some ways it is but I think about all this sort of lost decade that we had, and how many and the destruction of a couple of these communities, Liberty City in particular, and and how it could have been avoided. Yeah, you know, and so easily. Now, I mean, you know, I mean, so that's what makes your film both there was like a hopefulness to it, like look, this, this is this is why we need body camera footage. We get a
fuller picture, you get the better story. You know who the guilty party is. There's no question who's the instigator.
¶ How are her children doing?
There's no question. This isn't it he said, He he said, like Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman in that business. You know. But it hasn't It doesn't eradicate racism.
No, no, unfortunately it doesn't. But I think they the hope is that it might the film for us in
some ways, that it serves as a deterrence. And again because of the outcome at the end of the trial, where like maybe people will think twice about you know, trying to trying to pervert the law, which is already a problem in and of itself, but pervert standard ground laws and use them claim self defense when you're actually committing a crime, and that is the hope and again and the ultimate hope is to have this law eradicated state by state, and particularly because of the danger as
opposes your career.
You started working in scripted film with Spike Lee That's Home and he is He had spent a lot of time doing scripted social justice messaging, right, you know, And what do you think is the more effect way to get a message across? When is a documentary better than better than scripted? And and is it you said something earlier that that sort of hit me in this day and age when we're not sure what to believe. You know, in some ways the body camera footage is the most
¶ Watching the grief of the children was devastating & powerful
believable material you could come up with. That tells me that maybe the better way to to to to tell a story is with is with is with real footage rather than scripted you know, in the Manufacturer.
Book, I think they both. I love both mediums and I think they both absolutely have their place. I think if you have the material to make a really compelling documentary, why not, particularly if you're telling a true story, because I think people connect connecting to the fact that this is someone's actual life. It impacts them differently, whereas if it's actors or people. You know again, I love scripted was where I started and so and I love it
so much. But if you have the means to tell the story for real, you know, then why not why not do that? You know? And I think I think that truth is often stranger than fiction, you know, Like I the this film to me is a study of like you said, of a community of human behavior, of policying, like it has so many layers and yeah, and it's real, right it is. It's this is stuff that actually unfolded. Uh So I think that makes it really powerful. But
¶ Family wanted the world to see their grief
like like I said, I love both. I love both, and so I'm always happy to see, you know again, stories be told in multiple ways as creatively as possible. I think it's really up to the vision of the team and the director to decide.
Well, you know, it's funny. I think you set a bar here that I wonder for yourself, is it is it going to be if you want to do a documentary about another topic and you don't have enough footage, are you going to say, oh, geez, you know, I
¶ Hope the film can inform police training
don't know. If I don't, I don't want to go back to the talking head.
I might need to tap out.
I feel like, I mean, I mean, in some ways, right, You're like, well, this is I mean, there's I don't it's not. Who knows how often you can just get that, yeah, to tell a story.
Yeah. No, it is a rare, tragic confluence of things that led to this film. But I you know, I kind of believe that. And this is interesting. I'm usually not a person who thinks like this, but I sort of feel like this film. There's a story about Ajaca. Her mother always tells about how she was this. Ojika was a really vibrant, funny, bright person who had a lot of big dreams. She was young, you know, she
¶ In other states, Susan would have been charged for nuisance or harassment
was in her thirties, and she wanted better for herself and her family. And she used to talk to her call her mom every day. They were very close and they talk about her plans. She wanted to be an entrepreneur.
She was going to you know, be world famous. And her mother would laugh at her sometimes, moms do you know, just like because of her ideas and you know, just whatever, and her she would say to her mom and was one of the last things she said to her, and she would say, wait, you know, you just wait, you laugh. But one day the whole world's going to know my name. So for us, we're left with that in her absence, and I kind of feel like she's a part of
this somehow. She wanted the world to know her name, obviously never in this way, but that's become it's now on us to make that happen and to try to do more with her legacy and to make change in her name. So yeah, I think this film it has so much more. Every film is so important, but this film, in a way, there's a bit more weight on on how what we do with it and the impact.
How are her kids like?
It's it's I think it's up and down that for children. Children are both both incredibly resilient but also fragile and
¶ Some police funding would be better spent on social workers, psychiatrists etc
are not I mean, and this is and this would devastate anyone. So I think they are loved. They're deeply loved. The one incredible thing too, that we were able to do, which was part of my dream, was with this film. I had hoped that if we sold it, then we could give the money to the family because we had nothing to offer them otherwise, we didn't have any money.
You know, we're just filmmakers. But the sale to Netflix that happened out of Sundown's allowed us to give the majority of the money to the grandmother and to the family so they could again these kids, children can have security, so they have that they are loved and taken care of. But there's struggle. There's emotional struggle, which will probably again it's going to take many years to hear.
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¶ It felt like police didn't know how to handle Susan
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¶ Police saw Susan as a nuisance, not a threat. Her whiteness protected her
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Yeah, I think that's right. That kind of loss and that kind of trauma, you build resources and you build strength to work around it.
I mean, you know, I'm haunted just talking about it at the moment by her son, at the moment she's shot and he's just gasping for air.
Yeah. No, it's it is to see children, and it's interesting that grief. We've had many conversations about it because that grief watching the children learn that their mother is
¶ Susan seemed to be a loner & clearly always miserable
not coming home is the most challenging thing I think.
And that was on body camera footage, that moment with their.
Father, just because the police were around them.
Just you know, you're just sitting there and you're just that was a moment. I forgot it was body camera footage, and I'm like, wait a minute, was just so intimate, right, it was felt almost and then and then it's like, wow, was that police officer invading their space?
Yeah, it was he invading themself. But at the same time the police are ting comfort them. So I was like, it's weirdly human also, like it's a moment of humanity that I think where the police officers were trying to hug them and we're trying to console them, and didn't also didn't know what to do, you know, because it was such so heartbreaking. I think though, the it's interesting that footage because I think we are so numb to gun violence. Audiences react more to the grief than anything else.
And we talked about it with Audjika's mother. I was like, do you want this in? Like should we remove this?
¶ Police never checked into whether Susan was a gun owner
This is the worst day of these children's lives and here it is, like do we want this out in the world. And she said to me, no, you leave that in.
She was like, you leave that like Attil's mother.
Yes. She was like, the world needs if they had to go through that, if my grandchildren had to live through that, the world can bear witness. You know, it's a society failing them. They need the world needs to know. And I was like, okay, whatever, you know, that's obviously it's her call.
What do you want the average police officer to learn from this?
I think that I would love this to be used as a tool for police training, and I think I do think there's multiple things at play here. I think a lot of police departments are not trained or equipped for these kinds of issues. They're civil, they see them as civil.
And it was funny to even hear that once during the thing, well that's criminal, where Susan's trying so hard to like get that, Yeah, that's criminal. I'm here for that.
¶ What type of projects are you working on next?
You know what's interesting though, is we did have a police officer, a former law enforcement officer, approach. That's after a screening. He approached my producer and Elisa Payne and talked to her and she was nervous because you know, he came up and said, I I'm a I used to be in law enforcem And she.
Was like, okay, here we go.
That's to get a lecture. But he was like, you know what, after the third time Susan called here in this state and this was in Utah, he said, in this state she would have been flagged as a problem
and she would have been interesting. She would have been ticketed, she would have been given a warning for abusing emergency services, for essentially calling for things that were founded, and she was like, and that the community would have been told they could file restraining order or charges against her for harassments. And that was that.
How many states have laws like that?
I didn't, you know, I don't know, but it's true. I do think and we have. I think I understand that in states, if you constantly call the police and it's unfounded, you can be you know, you become.
Well, we've had I had to pay a fine because our alarm went off and our fire alarm went off when the fire department came, and I thought, well that in some ways that is reasonable. I just you know, that should be fined, and like I understood it. I
¶ Another documentary will be announced in a couple weeks
was like, oh Jesus, I you know, I hate this thing anyway, you know, but I know we have some form of that here in Arlington.
There's no real emergency, right there was, and I think she so they said that, And then I also believe that really there there should be alternative services to police, which are for again community disputes, mediation, mental health crises, that type of thing.
I think that we don't have enough law enforcement officers and then they would have to hire I mean, that's like, right, we are we are so well, we're underfunded in things that we don't prioritize. That's right.
Actually, well I don't know that we because police some police departments are very well funded, but the funding goes to, you know, it's only specific things. Some of that funding could go to again services that where you send out a social worker, a psychiatrist, you know, like and a team of nurses.
Like.
This is the kind of thing now here in New York we're talking about for people who are having or who are either unhoused or maybe having a mental health crisis, because otherwise they end up dead. If you call the cops, people get shot, you know, so there should be something else in place. And I feel like if the police
¶ Telling the story in a visual medium reaches people who don't read
are meant to deal with criminal stuff, first of all, you see, they don't prevent anything because Ajka ended up dead regardless, right, even though they.
Came home, True it didn't work. They were responsive, You can't say they weren't responsive. So in that sense, good they were.
They didn't prevent anything.
They would try to de escalate in the moment. Oh yeah, but they didn't have it didn't prevent yeah.
Didn't They didn't have a solution.
And also Susan, but I get the sense they almost felt like they couldn't impose a solution. They didn't. It wasn't they didn't know what to do. I did get the sense they didn't know what to do.
Yeah, they are not they are not trained.
Actually, I think we got we got a hint, and I'm curious. So there was a moment when one that's sorry, where one of the officers they leave. You know, this is probably the third time that they second or third visit. This is sort of early in the film, and the officer refers to her as an fing b.
Yeah, one of them says that, another one calls her a.
Psycho, and then the audio abruptly cuts. I was curious, was that your editor there edit?
That's she shut off?
Was like, realized she was. She was probably saying something despair. It was like, god, she's a And then she like, so, I'm guessing they're like, well, if you're going to disparait you know, be careful getting caught on camera disparaging people or something. She then that means that's the police officer realizing I better shut this off before I get myself.
That's right, that's right.
So there's a sense where the officers know who the party that's in the wrong here. They didn't know it, they don't have any Is it the law that's missing? Is it or is it their training? I mean, I don't what what do you think is the issue here?
I think they never saw her as a threat. I think she was able to weaponize her as a nuisance, yeah, but not a threat. And she was able to weaponize
¶ Comedy and humor is a great way to teach
her race and privilege to make that true. Had she been a person of color filming children and using hate speech against them and saying threatening things, I don't think this would have gone the way it did, or that she would have, you know, not been in it's more than a nuisance. And they also the police also didn't see the community is needing protection from her, you know. So I think this is unfortunately that they aside from lack of training, et cetera, et cetera. And they again
they are our bar for the police. My husband says,
¶ How do you use AI, what are you comfortable with, what will you fight?
this is so low that we often mistake they're polite. We missed stake their politeness for competence. You know, they didn't see her as a threat. Meanwhile, in Florida, you could go like like a toaster or microwave, so that could make anybody a threat, and even after she behaved radically driving her car into a fence, there was a scene where we saw that they didn't think about it.
You know, she never got connected, like, hey is.
A stemic issue.
She's a she's uniquely broken. I go back to broken. I always like to use broken because I assume everybody has the potential and you know, so I usually try to go with broken. But she was something happened right she was not she was she did not process the way most people process, but she.
Was left over here to fester right by them.
Then saying, I guess is she alienated everybody in her own life? H I mean, it was not it and I don't to me, the footage doesn't lie. You didn't paint her as a loaner. But we never saw her with anybody, and that doesn't surprise me.
Yeah, we kN know. She attended a church, so there was you know, she was there was a community.
Like she was clearly always miserable. I mean, if if kids playing drives you crazy, you've got your own issues.
But I think the thing that's really important to say is to the system also failed her. The system failed Ajica and her family, and that viewpoint, but it failed her. She should have never had access to again, she should have never you know, if there had been an intervention, she would not be in jail for ostensibly the rest of her life.
I mean, one law Florida did pass. Was there a red flag law after the Parkland shooting that has been quite effective in Florida. What happened, and she would have been a prime candidate, Uh, perhaps for it. Yeah, they knew, you know, and that is a question. Did they know she was a firearm owner because they could have found out that they chose.
To, They could have fell out, but they just did not.
They never chose to.
But she also saw her play victim, right, She weaponized victimhood the minute she thought she was in trouble.
Suddenly she welcomed to our welcome to our politics and social media.
Everybody, Yes, weaponizing victimhood. And I think but that has been a strategy. I have to say, all like, it's part of white grievance, right, it's like and also white women and there and fear when you look at Emma Till's case, right has led white women. And as we you know, it's now termed Karen.
Is a Karen. I saw that the kids were using Karen Karen.
But it's been the weaponization of racism right since.
Time neighbor named Karen. She hates that. I feel bad for her that her names now a pejorative.
Hell Less people have been lynched because of a white woman said, Oh, I'm afraid. I don't feel safe. They you know, they whistled at me or he said he talked to me, you know. I mean, that's how I'm until died. So we think about this and and Susan was doing that. She was doing that, and it's like a modern version of that.
So so what's next for you projects? I mean, I know most documentaries have like eight projects that they and they're waiting for see which one is going. Okay, this one's ripe, right, it's.
Last year, I should say. My Message Pictures, which is Sam Pollard, Alisa Payne and myself and a con Kwon two is a longtime collaborator. We had Katrina Come Hell and High Water come out on Netflix in October. It was a very successful series. It was number one for them for a couple of weeks, or for at least
a week, but it did really well for them. And then we also had a short come out The Devil Is Busy, which I co directed with Crystal and Hampton, my best friend from college, and that is also nominated for an Oscar. So I have two films that are nominated, which is apparently the first time it's ever happened for a woman, two films all right directed, So that is a huge you know again for me an honor also
a little disappointed that I am the first. It should have happened already, but whatever, I'll take it.
So it has to be yeah.
And then we have the perfect So so now we are. So we're starting up. There is another documentary which will be announced in a couple of weeks that we're about to we're beginning on. And then we're also diving back into scripted. We have some because I come from scripted, Elisa comes from scripted sound as script so where ni Con was an animation producer, so we have we want to sort of branch out and back into other forms that we've always been part of.
Well. One of the things that I've since leaving sort of the legacy media world is realizing that there are just a million ways to teach people, right and you know, film, especially with this younger generation that is much more visual than they are text. And there's I say that I'm not judging. You know, we all learn differently, we all absorb differently, and the visual medium as a story, you know,
in telling stories in some way the best storytellers. We need now more than ever in order to educate the country about our history, educate people about our history. So in that vein, I mean where you know, this to me is it's an education film as much as it's you know, it's there to it's there to visually show
you something that you can read about. This is not a new story, but this was told in a more powerful, in a different way, and in a way that is hopefully going to get absorbed by people who may not read. You know, a story I just had an author on not too long ago, the person who wrote about the barn that Emmett Till was killed in right Thompson. And it's a terrific book. But in some ways not everybody reads books.
Yeah, so it's like how do we reach people? You know, Ryan Coogler told a really beautiful story. We were We have Sinners has been on the you know, we've sort of been on the road together and the team.
You've been seeing you've been doing the circuit with Yes, Sinners is another that's awful, which is such a way to do horror.
Yeah, it's such a like again, such a thrill for us. But he talked about how in the neighborhood he grew up and like, there were elders who who actually because of lack of schooling or they had to leave school at an early age, you couldn't read. Like, they could run a business, they could navigate street signs, they could understand,
they couldn't actually read and comprehend a book. But they had movies, right, Movies were their medium, you know, a medium for them to like gain information and think about the world and interact with it because they didn't have
the privilege of learning how to read. And I thought that was so powerful and that I have there's some relation to that for me with like the women in my family who you know, again elder women not my mother's generation, but further back who might have been taken out of school at like a young age.
They're supposed to you know, at the keep house or something.
Yeah, and so for them even movies were like an escape and something, you know, a medium that they could really be immersed in.
So, is there a topic you haven't done that you want to tackle.
I would like to do a comedy. I would like to do something I think I've in need. I would like to do a humorous movie. That's my That's one of the dreams that. Yeah, because the humor is so critical. Humor is revolutionary. So I feel like that is something that I would like.
It's also another way to teach.
Yes, it is, and it's been used in so many ways. I think about Whoopy Goldberg talks about moms Mabley, who was her icon, who used that platform of comedy to talk about deeply political things she would never have been able to talk about otherwise.
So what me I to get a creator? And I'm very curious, how do you use AI? What are you comfortable with and what are you going to fight to the death on when it.
Comes to side. We don't use that. I don't use that as in my filmmaking.
So that does not Are you convinced you'll never use it?
I I am right now convinced I'll never use it. But I can't predict the future, right.
No, I mean I don't think any of us know how these Yeah, I do tools get changed on us?
And you're yeah, right, and also too, does it just become so ubiquitous that we have no choice? I'm worried about that. I would like to say I will never use it. I and that is my stance. But there comes a point where you end up shut out, right, like if you, for example, like I know I will not have a cell phone, but then if you don't like it, actually.
You have you just to navigate the world, Like now you can't not have one.
You cannot have one, and my children too, Like it's interesting, even.
In speaking of surveillance, I always say this, imagine if the government. Imagine if the government had said, we're you have to carry a phone with you all the time. What do you mean we have to carry a phone with us? Right? Yeah, yeah, we all did it follow entarilylievable.
But I think but I think so that's the thing, like I right now, no, but twenty years from now.
I mean you talked about you have a friend whage do an animation? I mean that that that scares me at how that will be the first I fear that's the first thing that falls.
Yeah, yeah, the first to.
Go because it's so expensive and labor intensive.
Yeah, so you know, but I think we'll have to see it's up to our community, right, like we really have to make.
Decisions well, and it's also up to the public hopefully. The stuff that's made with AI is you know, it's like you don't want to eat plastic fruit. No, no, And I think we've all learned, oh gross, it looks good, but probably right.
They continue to see the value in what we do and don't want to replace.
Us with well, and it goes like I said, it goes back to to take this back to the beginning as we land this plane that you know, I believe there's a premium on real life, in person, live authenticity, no editors, no anything, and in some case your body camera footage is all of that wrapped up. It is, you know, the the pushback against you know, manufactured content.
Thank you, Thank you for saying that. That means a lot.
Well, look, good luck and I know who I'm rooting for. That's good night.
Thank you so much.
All right, it's great to get to know you talk