When the upcoming 98th Academy Awards’ nominees were announced on Thursday, filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir achieved the rare feat of securing two nominations — one for directing documentary feature ‘The Perfect Neighbor’, and another for documentary short ‘The Devil Is Busy’, which she co-directed with Christalyn Hampton.
In her career spanning nearly two decades, this is the first time the 55-year-old filmmaker of Indian origin has been nominated for the Oscars. Considered to be a prominent voice in non-fiction cinema, Geeta began her career in editing, working with Spike Lee and Sam Pollard. Winner of two Emmy Awards for editing for non-fiction programming — ‘When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts’ (2007) and ‘By the People: The Election of Barack Obama’ (2010) — Geeta has subsequently directed several talked-about documentaries such as ‘Prison Dogs’ (co-directed with Perri Peltz) and ‘A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers’ (with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy).
In the 60s, her father Sharad Gandbhir emigrated from India to the US to study chemical engineering and he was later joined by her mother Lalita. Geeta, who grew up in Boston, studied visual art with a focus on animation at Harvard University. There, she was introduced to Lee and Pollard. Geeta’s sister Una S Gandbhir was appointed to the Anchorage Superior Court, Alaska, in 2018, and brother Ashwin Gandbhir is a filmmaker and editor.
The subject of her films are often bold and an unflinching look at systemic injustices. Described as “a devastating and aesthetically bold documentary” by Sundance Collab, ‘The Perfect Neighbor’ examines the killing of a 35-year-old Black woman named Ajike Owens. When she knocked on her neighbor’s door in Ocala, Florida, she was shot through the door by her neighbour, a 58-year-old white woman named Susan Lorincz.
The documentary, which is streaming on Netflix, mostly uses police bodycam footage, tracking events from the first time Lorincz called the police to complain about Owens and her children over a year prior up until her brutal killing. Because of Florida’s “stand your ground laws”, which allows a resident to exert deadly force against another individual if they believe doing so will prevent bodily harm, Lorincz felt justified in shooting Owens. This also exposes problematic gun regulations of America.
The ‘Devil is Busy’, an HBO original documentary short that adopts the cinéma vérité style, takes viewers on a daylong journey with Tracii, the determined head of security at a women’s healthcare clinic in Atlanta, Georgia, as she works to ensure the safety of women seeking abortions in the face of new restrictions and persistent protests. “The film follows the routines of the staff who continue to provide a range of medical services, including preventive screenings, checkups, and reproductive healthcare, in an environment where clinics often face daily threats of danger,” says its synopsis.
In an interview published on the Sundance Film Festival website regarding ‘The Perfect Neighbor’, Geeta said: “Filmmaking is one of the most unique and technologically advanced art forms for humans to share stories… It’s important to address the inequity in the system to make it a more equitable and accessible medium, but it’s a powerful tool to reach people worldwide and build cultural bridges and a shared human narrative.”
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