Marcia Robiou makes artful, character-driven documentaries illuminating the human experiences behind complex global issues. She spent five years at PBS FRONTLINE producing investigations that hold the powerful to account—including two Peabody Award-winning films. Most recently, she directed Double Life, a short documentary following a man ordered deported to a country he has never been to after serving 25 years for a murder he didn’t commit.
Robiou also produced Rovina’s Choice (The New Yorker, 2025), a film about hunger in Kenya amid sweeping cuts to U.S. foreign aid. Her current film has taken her to Bangladesh, where she is directing documentary films in the Rohingya refugee camps. She also briefs Trevor Noah on his What Now? podcast, which means going down very specific (and occasionally very silly) research rabbit holes to help shape his conversations.
She came to filmmaking after years as an aid worker protecting civilians in conflict zones. Along the way, she documented Myanmar’s political prisoners with an underground network, helped identify ISIS detention sites in Iraq, and launched a pilot program to protect South Sudanese journalists. Her work has taken her from mud huts to helicopter commutes, and even led to her serving as an expert witness in a landmark UK asylum case.
She holds an M.S. in investigative journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in political science and anthropology from New York University. She is based in New York City with her long-legged dachshund, Touki (named after Mambéty’s Touki Bouki).