:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/the-perfect-neighbor-102125-dfb58bccb3554947b861aa8ac9f9831f.jpg "Where was The Perfect Neighbor filmed? All about how the Netflix doc compiled its shocking bodyca...")
The buzzy documentary is comprised almost entirely of police bodycam footage and 911 calls. Where was The Perfect Neighbor filmed? All about how the Netflix doc
The buzzy documentary is comprised almost entirely of police bodycam footage and 911 calls.
Where was The Perfect Neighbor filmed? All about how the Netflix doc compiled its shocking bodycam footage
The buzzy documentary is comprised almost entirely of police bodycam footage and 911 calls.
By Randall Colburn
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Randall Colburn
Randall Colburn is a writer and editor at **. His work has previously appeared on *The A.V. Club, The Guardian, The Ringer*, and many other publications.
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October 21, 2025 4:53 p.m. ET
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Susan Lorincz, as seen in 'The Perfect Neighbor'. Credit:
Courtesy of Netflix
- *The Perfect Neighbor* uses police bodycam footage and 911 calls to tell the story of a deadly shooting in 2023.
- Director Geeta Gandbhir embraced this approach so viewers "could feel embedded within the community."
- *The Perfect Neighbor* is now streaming on Netflix.**
*The Perfect Neighbor*, now streaming on Netflix, isn't your typical documentary.
In lieu of talking heads and dramatic recreations, Geeta Gandbhir's film is composed almost entirely of police bodycam footage and 911 calls. This candid approach vividly unspools the conflict at its center, concerning a dispute between neighbors in 2023 that ended in murder.
Gandbhir received a directing award following its premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and has engaged with the numerous issues the film raises about community, race, paranoia, and "Stand Your Ground" laws in the U.S.
Below, we dig into the unique process of compiling and assembling *The Perfect Neighbor*, as well as details about where it was filmed.**
What is The Perfect Neighbor about?
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Susan Lorincz speaking with police officers in 'The Perfect Neighbor'.
Courtesy of Netflix
Per Netflix's logline,* The Perfect Neighbor* "bears witness to a tight-knit community navigating one neighbor's relentless harassment."
The neighbor in question is Susan Lorincz, who was 58 when she shot and killed 35-year-old mother of four, Ajike "AJ" Shantrell Owens, through a door. The murder occurred on Lorincz's porch, where Owens arrived in search of answers as to why Lorincz had been relentlessly harassing her children.
Where is Susan Lorincz now? What happened to the self-proclaimed 'Perfect Neighbor' after her arrest
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What specifically led Owens to Lorincz's door on June 2, 2023, was an incident in which Lorincz had allegedly thrown a pair of roller skates at one of Owens' children amid other threats, per CNN.
This confrontation followed more than two years of Lorincz allegedly hurling racial slurs and other derogatory insults at local children when they played in a field near her home. The Associated Press reported that Marion County deputies responded to at least six incidents between the two women during that time.
Those visits are chronicled in *The Perfect Neighbor, *as are the many 911 calls made by Lorincz. The documentary also depicts the aftermath of the shooting and Lorincz's claims of self-defense.**
Where does The Perfect Neighbor take place?
Lorincz lived alone in a rented house in Quail Run, a small residential development in Ocala, Fla., located in Marion County.
According to *The New Yorker*, Owens and Lorincz lived across the street from each other. The neighborhood was comprised primarily of working-class families, and it wasn't uncommon to see children playing unsupervised outside.**
What is Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law?
Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law is a key element of the case detailed in *The Perfect Neighbor, *and it's why it took police four days to arrest Lorincz for the murder of Owens.
Broadly speaking, "Stand Your Ground" laws allow for the use of deadly force in situations where someone feels their life is in danger. As noted by *The* *New Yorker*, Florida's Stand Your Ground law is "highly permissive of the use of lethal force if an assailant says that they acted in self-defense."
Lorincz claimed she feared for her life and acted in self-defense. She wasn't immediately arrested, according to a *New York Times* interview with Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods, because police needed to investigate "whether deadly force was justified or not" in this instance.
On June 7, 2023, after investigators concluded that Lorincz's "actions were not justifiable under Florida law," she was arrested and charged with manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery, and two counts of assault, per PEOPLE.
Lorincz's lawyer cited Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law in her defense, but a jury remained unmoved. She was found guilty of manslaughter via firearm and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
*The Perfect Neighbor* ends with the following note: "Stand Your Ground laws have been linked to an 8% to 11% increase in homicide rates, or roughly 700 additional deaths each year. Research has found huge racial disparities, with white Americans much more likely to find success with self-defense claims particularly when they kill Black people."**
Where does *The Perfect Neighbor'*s footage come from?
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Susan Lorincz being interrogated by police in 'The Perfect Neighbor'.
Courtesy of Netflix
*The Perfect Neighbor* is told through 911 calls and video from police bodycams, cellphones, and security cameras. As detailed in *The Guardian*, the footage was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Putting it all together, Gandbhir said in a September 2025 interview, was no easy task. "We had to sync all these hours of police body camera footage, which just came to us in a jumble, and figure out which audio went with which police officer," she said. "There were always two on the scene. There were also 911 calls and calls just that the shooter made to the police. And then there were detective interviews with the community. Figuring out who everyone was [was] a complete puzzle."
She added, "We really wanted to just live in the police body camera footage and not impose any voice-over or interviews or anything like that, so people could feel embedded within the community."**
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Speaking with *The* *Guardian*, Gandbhir said that the benefit of this kind of institutional documentation is that "the public would never doubt its authenticity. There was no reporter on the ground with bias. Right now, there is a lot of doubt about the authenticity of things. I believed that people would trust what they were seeing as it unfolded."
She went on to note how many people of color characterize bodycam footage as a "violent tool" used by police officers to "criminalize and dehumanize us, to justify violence they may perpetrate against the community." By using it in her film, she can "take this footage and flip it on its head."
Where can I watch The Perfect Neighbor?
*The Perfect Neighbor *is now streaming on Netflix.**
Source: "AOL Movies"
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