Jessica Yu

“I seem to be drawn to people who are obsessive…people who have tried to remake their world in some way,” says Jessica Yu, who employs a range of filmic and theatrical strategies to evoke artists’ lives in films like In the Realms of the Unreal and the Oscar-winning Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien. With The Protagonist, she uses puppets to revisit the work of classical Greek playwright Euripedes. Based in California, she also directs TV drama — including episodes of ER, The West Wing and Grey’s Anatomy — and has published fiction and journalism. She released her first dramatic feature, Ping Pong Playa, in 2007. She has served on the board of the International Documentary Association, and was the 2000 artist-in-residence at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Selected Filmography

Ping Pong Playa (2007)

The Protagonist (2007)
Sundance Film Festival nominee for Grand Jury Prize

In the Realms of the Unreal (2004)
Sundance Film Festival nominee for Grand Jury Prize
Emmy Award nominee for Non-fiction Filmmaking

The Living Museum (1998)

Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien (1996)
Academy Award – Best Documentary, Short Subject
International Documentary Association – IDA Award