Lisa Nishimura is Vice President, Original Documentary and Independent Features at Netflix. A 12-year Netflix veteran, Nishimura currently oversees the company’s original documentary slate, including features, shorts and limited series, as well as independent films. Her team strives to provide storytellers of all backgrounds with a global platform where they can share their unique narratives around the world–across geographies, languages, genders, cultures, experiences and perspectives.
The current slate of documentaries including, Miss Americana, Crip Camp, Circus of Books, Dick Johnson is Dead and Mucho Mucho Amor showcase her commitment to female documentarians and compelling storytelling. The Netflix Independent features team is responsible for films such as To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and Liz Garbus’ Lost Girls. Some upcoming titles include Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, ensemble gothic-western The Devil All The Time as well as recent global acquisitions such as Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog and star-studded Enola Holmes.
Under her leadership, original documentary features and shorts have earned four Academy Awards and fifteen Academy Award nominations. American Factory was the 2020 Oscar winner for Documentary Film, Period.End of Sentence. was the 2019 Oscar winner for Documentary (short), Icarus was the 2018 Oscar winner for Documentary Film, and The White Helmets was the 2017 Oscar winner for Documentary (short). Nominations include The Square (2013), Virunga (2014), What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), Winter on Fire (2015), Extremis (2016),13th (2016), which also earned an Emmy and BAFTA Award, Strong Island (2018), Heroin(e) (2018), End Game (2018), The Edge of Democracy (2019) and Life Overtakes Me (2019). The documentary Quincy won a Grammy Award (2019) for best Music Film and Homecoming (2019) a film by Beyonce Knowles Carter earned six Emmy nominations and won Best Music Film at the 2020 Grammy Award. Nishimura’s team also is responsible for the production of celebrated documentary series including the Emmy Award-winning series Making a Murderer and Wild Wild Country and 2018 Emmy Nominated Chef’s Table, and Somebody Feed Phil. Other critically acclaimed documentary series include The Keepers, Wormwood, Last Chance U, Ugly Delicious and Abstract: The Art of Design.