Geeta Gandbhir ’92
Director Geeta Gandbhir ’92 (BALA: Women’s Studies) has built an award-winning career making films about social justice issues.
Oscar Nominations
Two of those films received Oscar nominations in 2026, a rarity to be nominated in the feature and short documentary categories in the same year.
In the Best Documentary Feature Film category, Gandbhir earned a nomination for the Netflix film, The Perfect Neighbor, which chronicles an escalating neighborhood dispute that ends in tragedy when a young mother is killed for knocking on her neighbor’s door, as it examines the racial tension and consequences inherent in Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.
The Perfect Neighbor premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where Gandbhir took home the U.S. Documentary Directing Award. The Sundance Institute honored Gandbhir with the Vanguard Award for Nonfiction in 2026.
Gandbhir shares her second nomination with co-director Christalyn Hampton ’91 (Dance) for the cinéma vérité short The Devil is Busy, which follows the head of security for an Atlanta abortion clinic charged with the safety of staff and patients as it’s besieged by protestors.
Made for HBO Documentary Films, The Devil is Busy previously won the Audience Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and Best Short at RiverRun International Film Festival, among others.
From Narrative to Doc
Gandbhir began her career in narrative film, working with legendary filmmakers Spike Lee and Sam Pollard. After working for eleven years in scripted film, she transitioned into documentary film.
“The first film I worked on was Malcolm X, and Spike asked me to come back and work on When the Levees Broke. And that was my first real foray into documentary with Sam Pollard. I fell in love with it,” Gandbhir told Netflix.
Gandbhir is co-founder of Message Pictures with Alisa Payne and Pollard.
Rolling Credits
As a director, recent credits include the short film Reclaimed for Sesame Workshop; the Oscar shortlisted film How We Get Free and the series Eyes on the Prize, both for HBO; and the series Born in Synanon for Paramount.
Gandbhir also directed the feature documentary Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, which was nominated for the 2022 Critics’ Choice Award, won a 2023 SIMA Award, and won a 2023 Emmy Award.
Additionally, she directed and show-ran the series Black and Missing for HBO, which won a 2022 NAACP Award for Best Directing, a 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Series, a 2022 ATAS Honors Award, and a Cinema Eye Honors for Best Series.
She directed the film Apart with Rudy Valdez for HBO Max, which was nominated for an NAACP Award and won a 2022 Emmy Award.