Lisa Nishimura, is the streaming giant’s head of documentary and comedy programming at Netflix, and according to Vanity Fair (VF), she is changing the way filmmakers approach nonfiction TV.
When the filmmaker brothers Chapman and Maclain Way pitched, Wild Wild Country, a documentary series to Nishimura, they knew they had a compelling tale in the long-forgotten story of Rajneeshpuram, a commune in Rural Oregon built in the 1980s by the followers of an Indian guru, Bhagwan Rajneesh. It was a good story but they worried that what they had in mind fell too far outside the realm of the traditional true-crime documentary to be of wide interest.
In an interview with VF, Maclain said, “We already know what the crimes were; people already pled guilty to these crimes, so there’s not a lot of detective investigation work.” Instead the brothers; aim was more adventurous, “It was really about peeling back the cultural and political layers and re-examining what led this group to commit the largest biochemical terrorist attack in the history of the U.S.”
Nishimura listened and “was not discouraged by the lack of bold-faced names in the project, or by the fact that the brothers wanted to tell it across six and a half hours.” She saw in Wild Wild Country a chance to tell a true story in a style as complicated, vivid, and character-driven as prestige-TV drama. In fact she already had something like that in the works, Making a Murderer, a series investigating circumstances surrounding a Wisconsin man’s conviction, which would become worldwide sensation.
Most interesting in this insight of Nishimura’s decision making, is that she “saw the brothers a talent for allowing human beings their full complexity.” It was suspenseful storytelling that caught Nishimura’s attention.
Through these complex stories, “What you learn is that life is messy and all sides of a story have 100% conviction that they are on the right side of reason,” she told Vanity Fair.
Last year, City Times/KhaleejTimes asked her “How did coming from a different cultural background inform your sensibilities?
“I believe it matters a lot who gets to tell the story. Being a woman – especially a woman of color – you just have a different perspective,” Nashimura answered. “I was very sensitive to it, and the notion of who gets authorship was very important to me.”
When telling great global stories, it doesn’t really matter if it’s not in your native language. What is really important is that the story is well-told and has a deep human resonance, one that people will connect with. — Lisa Nashimura
“One of our first documentaries, as part of our Netflix Original Documentary initiative, was The Square (based on the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and its consequences). It’s in Arabic; however, it resonated with our customers in different territories. It’s important to understand that the person who has really experienced the particular subject matter or that world is the one most equipped to tell the story in a way that will resonate with viewers.”
Netflix been inclusive of Latino content by streaming such shows as the popular drama Narco, starring Pedro Pascal, and the Norman Lear comedy, One Day at a Time, starring Justina Machado. And, a new sitcom series and standup specials for comedian Gabriel Iglesias, which is a huge sweetheart deal for him!
Lisa Nashimura’s nose for such stories has helped make Netflix a prime force in audiences’ growing interest in nonfiction programming, which is key to the company’s play for total TV dominance.
Source: Vanity Fair Digital, June 15, 2018
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