Jessica Yu – MRQE https://mrqe.com Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:57:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://mrqe.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/MRQE-favicon-1.png Jessica Yu – MRQE https://mrqe.com 32 32 A Very Jonas Christmas Movie https://mrqe.com/movie/a-very-jonas-christmas-movie-m100153964/ Sun, 16 Nov 2025 05:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/a-very-jonas-christmas-movie-m100153964/ Kevin, Nick, and Joe Jonas face a series of escalating obstacles as they struggle to make it from London to New York in time to spend Christmas with their families.

]]> Quiz Lady https://mrqe.com/movie/quiz-lady-m100145572/ Sat, 23 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/quiz-lady-m100145572/ A brilliant but tightly wound, gameshow-obsessed young woman, Anne, and her estranged, train-wreck of a sister Jenny, must work together to help cover their mothers gambling debts. When Annes beloved dog is kidnapped, they set out on a wild, cross-country trek to get the cash the only way they know how: by turning Anne into a bona-fide gameshow champion.

]]> ForEveryone.Net https://mrqe.com/movie/foreveryonenet-m100128048/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/foreveryonenet-m100128048/ Foreveryone.net connects the future of the web with the little-known story of its birth. In 1989, 33-year-old computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web and his visionary decision to make it a free and accessible resource sparked a global revolution in communication. Tim has declared internet access a human right and has called for an online Magna Carta to protect privacy and free speech, extend connectivity to populations without access and maintain One Web for all. Tims dramatic story poses the question: will we fight for the web we want or let it be taken away?

]]> Ping Pong Playa https://mrqe.com/movie/ping-pong-playa-m100048458/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/ping-pong-playa-m100048458/ Streetwise swaggering Christopher “C-Dub” Wang is a suburban guy who waxes political on all things Asian American and clings to pro basketball pipe dreams. But when misfortune strikes his family, C-dub must overcome living at home, working a dead-end job and his worldly older brother, to run his Mom’s ping pong classes and defend the family’s athletic dynasty.

]]> Protagonist https://mrqe.com/movie/protagonist-m100058753/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/protagonist-m100058753/ Jessica Yu’s documentary explores the relationship between human life and Euripidean dramatic structure by weaving together the stories of four men: German terrorist, a bank robber, an “ex-gay” evangelist, and a martial arts student.

]]> Misconception https://mrqe.com/movie/misconception-m100109940/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/misconception-m100109940/ For almost 50 years, the world’s population has grown at an alarming rate, raising fears about strains on the Earth’s resources. But how true are these claims? Taking cues from statistics guru Hans Rosling, Misconception offers a provocative glimpse at how the worldand women in particular are tackling a subject at once personal and global. Following three individuals, director Jessica Yu focuses on the human implications of this highly charged political issue, inspiring a fresh look at the consequences of population growth. In English, Hindi, Mandarin, and Russian with subtitles.

]]> In the Realms of the Unreal https://mrqe.com/movie/in-the-realms-of-the-unreal-m100047862/ Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/in-the-realms-of-the-unreal-m100047862/ In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.

]]> The Living Museum https://mrqe.com/movie/the-living-museum-m100061544/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/the-living-museum-m100061544/ Jessica Yu returns to Sundance (her short, Better Late, played in 1997) with an extraordinary portrait of a forgotten portion of society. The Living Museum takes us beyond despairing generalizations about state mental institutions and broadens our views on the potential hidden within them.
Rather than a gloomy recreation hall where patients are glued to a humming television, we are thrust into a vibrant world of bright colors and textures where possibility has no limits. The patients at the Creedmoor Psychiatric
Center in Queens, both residents and outpatients, are invited to personalize their space by creating art which is as expressive and arguably as important as any elsewhere. The two men responsible for the renovated storeroom known as the Living Museum are the late Bolek Greczynski and psychologist Dr. Janos Marton, who remains the director of the museum, both unconventional thinkers who shared a vision.
The film introduces a number of patients with a range of illnesses, but all of them recognize they can express themselves through art in ways unavailable otherwise. From Issa, a young, articulate, court-appointed patient who uses painting as a release; to the detached David, a schizophrenic who uses art as a bridge to the outside world; to the highly educated Helen, diagnosed with severe depression, who always dreamed of becoming an artist and is about to show her work in a gallery in SoHo, the art space is central to their lives. Completely devoid of sentimentality or preciousness, The Living Museum celebrates the hidden artist in us all.

Jessica Yu, Director
Jessica Yu, a Los Angeles–based filmmaker, works in both non-fiction and narrative genres. She won an Academy Award for Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien, a portrait of the poet/journalist who has lived for four decades confined to an iron lung. Her other films include Better Late, Sour Death Balls, Men of Reenaction, The Conductor, and Home Base. The Living Museum is her fourth film at Sundance.

]]> Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien https://mrqe.com/movie/breathing-lessons-the-life-and-work-of-mark-obrien-m100048967/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/breathing-lessons-the-life-and-work-of-mark-obrien-m100048967/ Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien is a 1996 American short documentary film directed by Jessica Yu. Mark O’Brien was a journalist and poet who lived in Berkeley, California. The documentary explored his spiritual struggle coping with his disability; he had to use an iron lung much of the time due to childhood polio. O’Brien died on 4 July 1999, from post-polio syndrome. It won an Oscar at the 69th Academy Awards in 1997 for Documentary Short Subject.

]]> Better Late https://mrqe.com/movie/better-late-m100062344/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000 https://staging.mrqe.com/movie/better-late-m100062344/ A middle-aged man sets the table for two. His sister drops by to give him their late mother’s wedding ring, and flowers for the table for this special night. He changes his clothes several times and tries out various ways to propose marriage.

]]>