Madeleine Lim was born in Singapore in 11 May 1964. Her mother was born in China and adopted by Singaporean parents when she was 6, and her father was born in Malacca, and is of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Portuguese descent. At the age of nine, Lim's parents separated. Her mother later remarried to Lim's half-German and half-Spanish stepfather. She lived with her parents until she was 23 years old. Lim studied at the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus for her primary and secondary school education. She then went to Catholic Junior College and finished her diploma in the College of Physical Education. At the age of 23, she moved to San Francisco to escape persecution by the Singaporean government for her work as a young lesbian artist-activist. She holds a B.A. in Cinema from San Francisco State University, where she was awarded Outstanding Cinema Student of the Year. Since 2004, she has been an adjunct professor of film studies at the University of San Francisco.
Activism
In 1984, Lim, who was 20 years old at the time, ran an underground lesbian feminist newsletter in Singapore for 2 years. In 1985, a women's discussion group called the "NUS weekly tea group for womyn" was started at the National University of Singapore and Lim became actively involved in its activities, facilitating the weekly discussions and writing articles for its newsletter. Around the same time, Lim became actively involved in the then recently founded feminist organization, AWARE. In 1987, AWARE organized a dinner in celebration of International Women's Day. For the event, Lim co-wrote and directed a skit called the "Myth Pageant Beauty Contest," a spoof on the "Miss Pageant Beauty Contest." Shortly after the dinner, the Singapore government arrested Lim's co-author for the skit. This occurred during the alleged Marxist Conspiracy in 1987, when the Singapore government arrested a number of writers and theater practitioners. She left Singapore for New York City, USA in 1987 and eventually made her way to San Francisco, California. In 2000, Madeleine Lim founded the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project in San Francisco, "with the belief that a community of artist-activist leaders could change the face of filmmaking and the social justice movement." As the founding Executive/Artistic Director, Lim continues to direct the organization's vision and provides artistic direction for all QWOCMAP programs. Lim is also a co-founder of SAMBAL and the US Asian Lesbian Network in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, USA. Her films, which have a large focus on the adversity faced by the LGBTQ and Asian Pacific Islander community, have screened at sold-out theaters at international film festivals around the world, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, and Amnesty International Film Festival. Her work has also been featured at museums and universities, and broadcast on PBS to over 2.5 million viewers.
Awards and honors
1997 Award of Excellence from the San Jose Film & Video Commission's Joey Awards
1998 National Educational Media Network Bronze Apple Award
