BIOGRAPHY
Yvette Torell began her video career at the Boston Film/Video Foundation. It was during many late nights, in the edit suite, that she taught herself how to cut, and realized she wanted to become a professional editor.

Her first independent short Persephone Dream is a hybrid media piece shot in Super 8mm and edited in video. Persephone Dream won an award at the San Francisco Video Refusés.

Later, Yvette traveled to China and Tibet to film Y Na Na a short documentary portraying the women of four indigenous groups living in southwestern China. Y na na won both the "Grand Prize for Best Documentary" and the "Audience Favorite" awards at The U.S. Super 8mm Festival at Rutgers, and the film was broadcast on New Jersey PBS.

In 1998, the director turned her lens to focus on the intimate lives of five women, producing Just Mom and Me, a documentary feature about the challenges facing single mothers in America. Just Mom and Me received the "Audience Favorite Award" at Pacific Northwest Festival of Anthropological and Fictional Film. It is distributed educationally by Filmaker's Library in New York, and has been televised on WGBH, KQED, KRON, KPBS, KTOP, and Free Speech TV.

Among other pursuits, Yvette has an M.A. in TV and Radio from San Francisco State University, and a B.A. in Mass Media Communications from Boston College. As a media scholar, she conducts research, and has written essays about social media and how media affects society.

Yvette has served as a visiting artist and adjunct professor at the San Francisco Art Institute teaching Avid and editorial methodologies to BFA and MFA students.

Her films have been screened at Mill Valley Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, Film Arts Festival, Athens' International Film Festival, New Jersey International Film Festival, United States Super 8mm Film Festival, Women's Film Festival of Montreal, Taos Talking Pictures, Tahoe International Film Festival, Northwest Film Center, The Visual Studies Workshop, Works by Women at Barnard College, Women One World, The Smoky Mountain Media Festival, and the Library of Congress.