Academy award winner Jessica Yu is a prolific filmmaker who is equally at home working in a wide variety of media and genres, from verite to scripted to animation, to shorts and documentaries, to episodic television, features and commercial spots.  Across all her work, one sees her remarkable ability to depict the serious and the light-hearted—in other words, the whole of the human experience—at the same time. Her nonfiction short, Breathing Lessons, won an Oscar and an Emmy in addition to numerous international awards. Her HBO documentary, The Living Museum, was a Sundance selection, as was her Emmy-nominated In the Realms of the Unreal, which also received several national and international film festival honors. Protagonist, distributed by IFC Pictures, garnered Jessica a Writer's Guild nomination and her third nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Additionally, she has had three light-hearted shorts featured at the Sundance: Sour Death Balls, Better Late and animated hybrid The Kinda Sutra. Jessica’s latest major documentary, Last Call at the Oasis, delves deep into the world’s water crisis with activist Erin Brokovich. She is also in production on a film about environmental sustainability in Mozambique.

On the narrative side, Jessica is a well-respected director of episodic television programs including Grey’s Anatomy and Parenthood. Her independent comedy feature Ping Pong Playa premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was released by IFC.

In the commercial world, Jessica has helmed campaigns, featuring both real people and actors, for various clients including Secret, MasterCard, Microsoft and Jet Blue. Her multi-city “Swap Your Ride” featuring Mike Rowe, “Town to Town” and “Drive One” campaigns for Ford, have become a staple on the web and TV nationwide and earned Automotive Ad of the Year laurels. Most recently, Jessica once again worked with Mike Rowe on Kimberly Clarke's new Viva Paper Towels campaign.