The one to root for at the Oscars!

A still from her Netflix documentary The Perfect Neighbor

I could obviously google this. But it just felt better to bring it up with the American-born, Indian-origin filmmaker, Geeta Gandbhir, in person: "Are you actually the first in the history of the Academy Awards to be nominated for two separate categories, in the same year?" And, of course, isn't that incredible!

Geeta is simultaneously in the running for the 2026 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, for her film, The Perfect Neighbour (Netflix). And the Best Documentary Short, for The Devil is Busy
(HBO/JioHotstar).

Over a Zoom call from the US, Geeta tells me, "I am the first woman, yes. The first person, I suppose - and one has to fact-check this - was Walt Disney, who had a short, and a feature, nominated in the same year, that was back in the 1960s. Touchwood; glad to be here!"

Which also says much about how prolific Geeta, 55, is. It's impossible to burn through her filmography, before we speak.

Her last work, even after the year's two Oscar noms, that I caught, is the miniseries, Katrina: Come Hell and High Water (Netflix) that she's co-directed with her long-time collaborator, Spike Lee.

Filmmaker producer, and editor Geeta Gandbhir

Geeta sighs, "Well, this happens when projects overlap - you're in the development phase of one, the other is in post, and you're shooting [yet] another. This is possible with a strong edit team. I never have two things in production (shooting-stage) at the same time."

The beauty of all three, though - the short, feature, and the series - is they intimately hit you in ways that fiction can barely substitute such striking reality. How does an actor mimic life itself - and why should they, when it so engagingly exists, as is, anyway?

Consider, in particular, The Perfect Neighbour that, as a genre, is a true-crime drama, about a black woman (Ajike Owens), shot dead by her white neighbour (Susan Lorincz) in a calm, Florida residential colony.

In terms of pure documentary filmmaking, it's unique still. In the sense, as Geeta puts it, "Usually, you film in locations, and fill in the blanks with archival footage."

Over here, the archival footage is the film itself - observed through bodycams on the police, investigating the said death, along with audio-tapes of calls made to 911, and several CCTV images.

As a professional editor, Geeta pieced together the footage first. And then shot portions to fill in the gaps, instead.

What's somehow left unmentioned in the film, and that I was eager for Geeta to reveal in detail, was the victim, Ajike, was known to the filmmaker herself. "[Being Indian] I think you'll understand this - there's no word here for a cousin-in-law."

As in, Ajike was her husband, producer Nikon Kwantu's cousin. They received a call from the family the night Ajike died. They headed over to Florida, and remained invested in the case, mainly to help spotlight media attention to it. That's also how Geeta received the police bodycam footage, two months later.

The film, she suggests, chiefly emerged from the "pipe dream" of selling it. That, in turn, could financially assist the family of the deceased; four kids, and a grandmom.

The bone of contention in The Perfect Neighbour is the law termed ‘stand your ground' - wherein, claiming self-defence, you can get away with murder. The core subtext is racial relations still. Which, I notice, informs a lot of Geeta's works.

She reasons, "America was founded on white supremacy, and institutionalised slavery - subjugation and genocide of indigenous people. There is no tiptoeing around it."

As an Indian-American, where does she place herself in the discourse?

Geeta argues, "My father migrated from India [to the US] in the '60s, as a student. He ended up bringing over a lot of his family - sponsoring brothers, sisters - because of the immigration laws in the '70s, that allowed you to.

"Being a minority of colour definitely shaped my worldview. All the immigrants that came over, ultimately, stood on the shoulders of the black community, for the freedom and civil rights struggles that had happened here, earlier.

"They paved the way for us. Of course, the powers-that-be try to divide us, claiming Asians as a model minority. That's something we have to reject!"

The other thing you observe in Geeta's works - take Katrina (2025) on the 2005 hurricane; even How We Get Free (2023, JioHotstar), about cash-bail system in the US judiciary - there's inevitably a righteous person balancing out the obvious wrongs.

Especially, the lead Tracii in The Devil is Busy, heading security at an abortion clinic in Atlanta: "What you find interesting with her is that while religion is being weaponised against women and female reproductive freedoms, Tracii manages to hold her faith," Geeta says.

Whether or not The Devil is Busy or The Perfect Neighbour win at the Oscars, at least you know the two films to catch, if you haven't already - before rooting for the gritty Geeta on the big night/stage! Desi connect is merely the minor bonus, of course.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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