Karin Lee is a Canadian filmmaker. She is an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

of film at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

. Her 2000 documentary, ''Made in China'', won a

Gemini Award The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's English-language television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in t ...

Biography

Lee was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is a fourth generation

Chinese Canadian Chinese Canadians are Canadians of full or partial Chinese people, Chinese ancestry, which includes both naturalized Chinese immigrants and Canadian-born Chinese. They comprise a subgroup of East Asian Canadians which is a further subgroup of ...

, born to cultural activist parents. Her great-grandfather, Mah Bing Kee, was a Chinese labourer who immigrated to California in 1861 to work in the gold fields, then to

Nanaimo Nanaimo ( ) is a city of about 100,000 on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. "The Harbour City" was previously known as the "Hub City", which was attributed to its original layout design with streets radiating fr ...

, British Columbia, in 1878. Her father ran a communist bookstore on Hastings Street in Vancouver's

Downtown Eastside The Downtown Eastside (DTES) is a list of neighbourhoods in Vancouver, neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. One of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, the DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues, including disproportio ...

from the 1960s to 1980s; she wrote and directed the short film ''Comrade Dad'' about the store. With Lorraine Chan and the Chinese Cultural Centre of Vancouver, Lee co-founded the Chinese Film and Video Festival, which ran from 1994 through 1996. Lee's documentary ''Made in China'' (2000) explores the lives of Chinese-born children adopted by Canadian families. A review in the ''Chicago Tribune'' described it as "thoughtful" and "engrossing". The film won the Canada Award at the 2001 Gemini Awards. In 2018, SUM Gallery, run by Vancouver's Queer Arts Festival, featured her work in its debut exhibition, ''Karin Lee: QueerSUM 心.'' The exhibition included three films that examine facets of Asian Canadian activism. A review in ''

Canadian Art Canadian art refers to the visual arts, visual (including painting, photography, and printmaking) as well as plastic arts (such as sculpture) originating from the geographical area of contemporary Canada. Art in Canada is marked by thousands of ...

'' noted Lee's aim to "normalize the non-linear narratives in the queer and feminist Chinese community and to propose how those lived experiences are still relevant today at the intersection of race, gender and sexuality." In 2019, it was reported that Lee was working on a documentary about Velma Demerson, a white Canadian woman who was jailed for being in a relationship with a Chinese immigrant. Lee is an

of film at the

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Karin 1960 births Living people Canadian documentary film directors Canadian women film directors Film directors from Vancouver Academic staff of the University of British Columbia Asian-Canadian filmmakers Canadian women documentary filmmakers