Staff + Team

Madeleine Lim

Executive/Artistic Director

At the age of 23, Madeleine Lim escaped persecution by the Singaporean government for her organizing work as a young lesbian artist-activist. Ten years later, she created Sambal Belacan in San Francisco, a film that is still banned in Singapore for its exploration of race, sexuality and nationality. As one of a small number of queer women of color filmmakers on the international film festival circuit, she saw that only queer women of color would tell their own authentic stories. She created Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) with the belief that a community of artist-activist leaders could change the face of filmmaking and the social justice movement.

As founding Executive/Artistic Director, Lim directs organizational vision and provides artistic direction for all QWOCMAP programs. She is an award-winning filmmaker with more than 20 years of experience as a producer, director, editor, and cinematographer. Her films have screened at sold-out theaters at international film festivals around the world, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, and Amsterdam Amnesty International Film Festival. Her work has also been featured at museums and universities, and broadcast on PBS to over 2.5 million viewers.

Lim holds a B.A. in Cinema from San Francisco State University, where she was awarded Outstanding Cinema Student of the Year. Lim’s films have received awards from the prestigious and highly competitive Paul Robeson Independent Media Fund, as well as the Frameline Film Completion Fund. She received the 1997 Award of Excellence from the San Jose Film & Video Commission’s Joey Awards and won the 1998 National Educational Media Network Bronze Apple Award. From 2000 to 2003, she was a California Arts Council Artist-in-Residence. Under Lim’s leadership, QWOCMAP’s Filmmaker Training Program was awarded 2003 Best Video Program by San Francisco Community Media. In 2005, Lim received the LGBT Local Hero Award from KQED-TV in recognition of her leadership of QWOCMAP and her dedicated service to the queer women of color community. The Featured Filmmaker at the 2006 APAture Asian American Arts Festival, Lim has twice been awarded the San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Commission for her new film about her mother and other girls adopted from China. She has won the 2007 DreamSpeaker Award from Purple Moon Dance Project, and the 2010 Phoenix Award from Asian Pacific Islander Women & Transgender Community (APIQWTC).

T. Kebo Drew

Managing Director

Drew directs organizational development, strategic thinking, fundraising and communications for QWOCMAP. She joined QWOCMAP as its second staff member in 2007 as a Horizons Foundation Rickey William Leader Fellow, when she developed and expanded the QWOCMAP Community Partner program. She also conceived QWOCMAP’s signature presentation "Reels of Resistance: Film IS Social Justice Activism."

Drew has professionally managed development, operations and events for corporations, community, arts and nonprofit organizations for over 15 years. She is also a member of the Frameline (SF LGBT Film Festival) Board of Directors. She holds a B.P.A. in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco.

Born in Memphis, Drew is a 2nd generation activist. She is also an award-winning poet, dancer and writer who has performed throughout the U.S., Latin America and Europe. A Cave Canem Poetry Fellow, Drew has won the Audre Lorde/Pat Parker Award and the Astraea Emerging Lesbian Writers Award. She has also won the Irene Weed Dance Award and Robert Kuykendall Dance Scholarship.