Deborah Lum is an American

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

filmmaker based in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. Her projects frequently explore subject matters within the Asian and

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used fo ...

community. She has had a long working relationship with

ITVS ITVS (Independent Television Service) is a service in the United States which funds and presents documentaries on public television through distribution by PBS and American Public Television, new media projects on the Internet, and the weekly ...

Career

Lum worked for several years as a

film editor Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...

for documentary filmmaker Spencer Nakasako. She's been mentored by Nakasako and documentary filmmaker S. Leo Chiang. Lum directed the documentary short ''Is Chan Still Missing?'' (2005) about the making of ''

Chan Is Missing ''Chan Is Missing'' is a 1982 American independent comedy-drama film directed, co-written, produced and edited by Wayne Wang. It is his solo directorial debut. The film, which is shot in black-and-white, is plotted as a mystery with noir un ...

'' (1982). The short was included on ''Chan is Missing'''s 2022

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...

release. Lum's debut feature documentary is ''Seeking Asian Female'', a film about an older American man seeking to marry a woman half his age from China that he met online. The film is centered around Lum's perspective as a Chinese American woman, who document's the journey and serves as translator. The project was originally conceived due to Lum's interest in the real life complexities behind the yellow fever phenomenon. In 2002, she was developing a screenplay about a character with yellow fever and conducted research by interviewing people from

Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is a privately held American company operating a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussi ...

who posted ads seeking Asian women. That's how she met Steven, the subject of ''Seeking Asian Female'', and decided to pivot into filming his relationship with Sandy''.'' ''Seeking Asian Female'' was an official selection at the 2012

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

festival. It won "Best Documentary Feature" at the

San Diego Asian Film Festival The San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF) is an annual film festival in San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, ...

and "Best of Fest" at the Silverdocs Documentary Festival. Lum won "Best Documentary Director" at the

Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) – formerly known as VC FilmFest – is an annual film festival presented by Visual Communications (VC). It was established in 1983 by Linda Mabalot as a vehicle to promote Asian Pacific Amer ...

. Lum acknowledged that the film's focus deviated from yellow fever. She and media strategist Maikiko James later developed the

web series A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

and online forum ''They're All So Beautiful'' (theyreallsobeautiful.com), looking to engage further discussion around

interracial dating Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different " races" or racialized ethnicities. In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation (Lat ...

and Asian fetish. The companion project to ''Seeking Asian Female'' received input from fashion

Henry Lau Henry Lau (; ; born October 11, 1989), known mononymously as Henry, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer based in South Korea and China. He debuted in 2008 as a member of Super Junior-M and launched his ...

and academics such as Elaine H. Kim and Celine Parreñas Shimizu. Lum is the director and co-producer of the documentary ''

Try Harder! ''Try Harder!'' is a 2021 American documentary film, directed and produced by Debbie Lum. It follows students at Lowell High School as they apply and hope for admission to the college of their dreams. It had its world premiere at the Sundance ...

'', a film about five high school seniors at the competitive Lowell High School in San Francisco and their

college admissions University admission or college admission is the process through which students enter tertiary education at universities and colleges. Systems vary widely from country to country, and sometimes from institution to institution. In many countries, ...

journeys. Production began while Lum was working on a separate documentary about

tiger parenting Tiger parenting is a form of strict parenting, whereby parents are highly invested in ensuring their children's success. Specifically, tiger parents push their children to attain high levels of academic achievement or success in high-status extr ...

, ''My Tiger Mom,'' at Lowell High School. ''Try Harder!'' made its world premiere at the

2021 Sundance Film Festival The 2021 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 28 to February 3, 2021. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 15, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Utah, the festival combined in-person screenings at the Ray ...

, which was held virtually during the

COVID-19 pandemic in the United States On December 31, 2019, China announced the discovery of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. The first American case was reported on January 20, and United States Department of Health and Human Services, Health and Human Services Secreta ...

. It was selected to open

CAAMFest CAAMFest, known prior to 2013 as the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF), is presented every May (Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month) in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States as the nation' ...

2021 on May 13, 2021, as a drive-in screening at

Fort Mason Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California is a former United States Army post located in the northern Marina District, alongside San Francisco Bay. Fort Mason served as an Army post for more than 100 years, initially as a coastal defense site a ...

Personal life

Lum was born in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

and grew up in

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

. She graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in 1991. She received her MFA in cinema from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

. Lum is fifth generation

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

. She speaks limited

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

Filmography

Features

* ''Seeking Asian Female'' (2012) * ''

'' (2021)

Web series

* ''They're All So Beautiful'' (2013)

Short films

* ''Is Chan Still Missing'' (2005)

References

External links

Interview
with ''Filmmaker'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lum, Debbie Artists from St. Louis American documentary filmmakers Brown University alumni San Francisco State University alumni American artists of Chinese descent American film directors of Chinese descent Filmmakers from Missouri Film directors from San Francisco Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women American women documentary filmmakers