Jihan Robinson

Consultant

Jihan Robinson is an Emmy®-nominated independent producer and executive working in Documentary film and television for nearly 20 years. Most recently, she was vice president of Documentary Film & Series at Onyx Collective, a premium content brand under Disney Entertainment that focuses on artists of color and underrepresented voices. In this role, she was responsible for building Onyx Collective’s roster of emerging and established creators of color to produce and develop non-fiction projects for the brand. Released titles include The Academy®-award winning “Summer of Soul (...or When the Revolution Could Not be Televised)”, Emmy®-award winning “The 1619 Project”, Peabody®-award winning “Aftershock”, and “Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius” which opened the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for Outstanding Documentary at the 2025 Emmy Awards, among others.

Prior to this role, Robinson was vice president of Alternative Programming at Freeform, where she oversaw nonfiction and alternative content for Disney General Entertainment’s young adult network. Robinson also acted as vice president of Nonfiction Programming at Topic Studios, where she oversaw the financing, development and production of documentary series and feature films. At Topic, she executive produced “Pahokee” (Sundance FF, 2019), “Black 14” (Sundance FF, 2019), “Wrinkles the Clown” (Magnolia Pictures) and “Love Fraud” (Sundance FF, 2020; Showtime), “Attica” (2021 Academy Award® Nominee for Best Documentary; Showtime) and “No Accident” (HBO) in addition to providing financing for “The Fight” (Sundance FF, 2020; Magnolia Pictures), “Mucho Mucho Amor” (Sundance FF, 2020; Netflix), “A Thousand Cuts” (Sundance FF, 2020) 

In her independent work, she produced “Traveling While Black,” a VR documentary about race and restricted movement in America. The film, directed by Academy Award-winning documentarian Roger Ross Williams, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program. The first feature film she produced, “The Seventh Fire,” premiered at the 2015 Berlinale and was later acquired by Film Movement.

Previously, she worked in the Original Documentaries division of Netflix, where she executive produced “Casting JonBenet” (Sundance FF, 2017), “Get Me Roger Stone” (Tribeca FF, 2017), “Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On” (Sundance FF, 2017) and “Last Chance U.” In addition, she acquired “One of Us” (TIFF, 2017; Oscar® Shortlist 2018), “Cuba and the Cameraman” (Venice FF, 2017), “Flint PD,” “Rapture” (SXSW, 2018), and “The Rachel Divide” (Tribeca FF, 2018).

Prior to her role with Netflix, she worked at Pivot, Participant Media’s television arm, where she oversaw the development of alternative and unscripted programming and acted as an executive producer on the documentary strand Panoramica. Titles included “Cesar’s Last Fast” (Sundance FF, 2014), “Marmato” (Sundance FF, 2014), “Crossing Over: Stories of Identity and Immigration” (2015 GLAAD Award winner for Best Spanish Language Documentary) and “Death By A Thousand Cuts” (Hot Docs 2016). Before joining Participant, Robinson worked in programming at HBO Documentary Films. She was involved in the acquisition, development and postproduction of over 50 films and three series. 

Robinson received her Bachelor of Arts in art history and social science in the arts from SUNY Purchase College and a Master of Arts in arts administration from Columbia University. She is a member of the Documentary Branches of AMPAS and ATAS.