Josh Safdie series enters 10 categories

HBO Max is rolling out an extensive Emmy campaign for Neighbors, the Josh Safdie-produced documentary series that turned America’s most trivial real estate line dispute into one of the season’s most talked-about unscripted experiments.

After season two was greenlit, the network has submitted the series for 10 Emmy Awards this year, including a bid for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program, Variety has exclusively revealed. Produced and directed by Harrison Fishman and Dylan Redford, the six-episode A24 production spent more than two years integrating America’s feuding neighbors, framing their fights over fences, surveillance cameras, backyard zoos, and the now-infamous swimsuits as a window into a polarized nation.

The series is a notable pivot for Josh Safdie, who produces Neighbors with frequent collaborators Bronstein and Bush after a well-documented professional break-up with his brother Benny Safdie. It also continues the rollout of HBO Max’s Safdie nonfiction offerings, such as “Telemarketers” and “Ren Fair,” trading those projects’ single-theme deep dives for anthology rhythms that stack multiple combustible stories in each half-hour.

Safdie was nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing for Timothée Chalamet’s ping-pong drama Marty Supreme. In addition to its multiple hyphenation in the best submission race, the program also features executive producers Ronald Bronstein (who earned two Oscar nominations for Marty), Eli Bush, John Paul Lopez-Ali, Jonathan Hausfater, Chris Bowyer, Harrison Fishman, Dylan Redford, Samuel Fishman and Brendan McHugh as executive producers, and Andy Rouse and Max Allman as producers. Co-executive producer, Natalie Teter is a producer, and Rachel Walden has a producing credit. The campaign coalesces around the amazing finale, “Yellow Thong Bikini” (Episode 106), which is brought to almost every craft race.

There’s an interesting Hollywood pedigree embedded in the producer credits. Dylan Redford, the series’ co-creator, director, editor, cinematographer, production sound mixer, main titles editor, and motion design director, is the grandson of the late Robert Redford, the Oscar-winning actor and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, who passed away last year at the age of 89.

A potential Emmy nomination would break the network’s long drought in the genre. HBO has rarely been a factor in reality competition, and “Neighbors” comes off as a populist drama centered around the relatable theme of neighborly feuds. If the unstructured reality bid goes through, it would be HBO’s first reality series to be nominated in six years since “We’re Here” in 2020, and “Neighbors” would be the network’s fourth reality series to enter the field, following “Project Greenlight” (2016, 2004, 2002) and “Taxi Confessions” (2002, 2001).

Emmy nomination round voting will be held from June 11th to June 22nd, and the official nominations for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced on July 8th.

The complete list of Emmy submissions is below.

The first season of “Neighbors” is streaming on HBO Max.