Deborah Lum is an American documentary filmmaker based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Her projects frequently explore subject matters within the Asian and

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

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 seri ...

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 which increasingly involves the use of digital technology. The film edit ...

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 produced and directed by Wayne Wang. The film, which is shot in black and white, is plotted as a mystery with noir undertones, and its title is a play on the Charlie Chan f ...

'' (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." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

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 Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. In ...

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 an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, Gig worker, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark ...

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, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

festival. It won "Best Documentary Feature" at the

San Diego Asian Film Festival The San Diego Asian Film Festival ( SDAFF) is an annual event organized by Pacific Arts Movement (formerly the San Diego Asian Film Foundation) that takes place every November in San Diego, California. Background SDAFF is the flagship event for ...

and "Best of Fest" at the

Silverdocs Documentary Festival The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival is an American international film festival created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel. It is held every year in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Started ...

. 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 a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single i ...

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. In 196 ...

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

Henry Lau Henry Lau (; ko, 헨리; born October 11, 1989), often mononymously referred to as Henry, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor based in South Korea and China. He debuted in 2008 as a member of Super Junior-M ...

and academics such as

Elaine H. Kim Elaine H. Kim is an American writer, editor and professor emerita in Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Kim retired from teaching in 2015. Her academic interests and research areas included Asia ...

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 The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the Uni ...

. It was selected to open

CAAMFest CAAMFest, known prior to 2013 as the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF), is presented every March in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States as the nation’s largest showcase for new Asian American and Asia ...

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

Fort Mason Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 188 ...

Personal life

Lum was born in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

and grew up in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri 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 is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. She graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1991. She received her MFA in cinema from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

. Lum is fifth generation

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

. She speaks limited

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

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 women 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