Desiree Lim

Born in Malaysia in 1971, Lim grew up speaking Cantonese and Mandarin. Her parents are Chinese and had moved to her birthplace from mainland China and Hong Kong. In school, she became a skilled kendo practitioner. Upon graduating from high school, she moved to Tokyo to study at Sophia University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. She did not move back to Malaysia after her education, due to the lack of freedom of the press there. ==Career==

Lim made her first independent short film, Closet is for Clothes, in Tokyo, where it was shown at the 1995 Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. This was the beginning of her career as an independent filmmaker. Six years later she created her first feature-length film, Sugar Sweet, in which she described her coming out as a queer filmmaker. Notable films Sugar Sweet (2001) Perhaps Lim's most popular work, Sugar Sweet is an erotic comedy that plays with the straight male ideas of what lesbian porn looks like. It is the first erotic film in Japan that was both made for and by queer women. Floored By Love (2005) This work by Lim was a part of the Eight Stories About Love series on the Canadian television network Citytv. The House won Best Screenwriting and Best Performance at the Vancouver Women in Film Festival and was awarded Best Canadian Feature at the Female Eye Film Festival. ==Inspiration==

From birth, Lim's identity as a transmigrant Asian woman influenced the way she saw the world. Though she was born and had lived in Malaysia, then later Japan, she seldom saw Asian faces represented in media during her childhood, declaring that all the faces on her TV screen were those of white people. This drove her to create her own representation of people like herself. Lim's goal with her works is to create more positive and diverse representations of Asian women, and to tell the stories of those with intersecting queer-Asian identities. Her inspiration is not derived from a role model, but rather the lack thereof in her life. The aim of her work is to challenge taboo topics and to empower her audience; in this regard, she considers her films to be forms of activism. ==Personal life==

Lim is fluent in English, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese and Malay. ==Filmography==

Film • 1995: Closet is for Clothes • 1999: Disposable Lez • 1999: Dyke: Just Be It • 2001: Eroticism • 2003: Salty Wet – director (Short film) • 2005: Out For Bubble Tea – director, producer, writer (Short film) • 2005: Some Real Fangs – director, producer, writer (Short film) • 2011: The House – director, producer, writer Television • 2001: Natural Mystery: Health & Hypnosis – associate producer (TV documentary) • 2001: Sugar Sweet – director, writer (TV movie) • 2005: Floored By Love – director, producer, writer (TV movie) ==See also==