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 the 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 the 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 and 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 the 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.
Christina Lang
Program Manager
Christina first joined QWOCMAP as a communications intern in 2017 and worked at the 13th and 14th Queer Women of Color Film Festivals. Her interest in activism and social justice has guided her fields of study and community work. Christina holds a B.A. in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Bates College, with a minor in African American Studies and concentrations in Queer Studies and Race, Ethnicity, and Identity. Before she graduated, she was awarded the Twentieth-Anniversary Award in Gender and Sexuality Studies. In 2018, Christina completed an Honors Thesis centering asexuality and aromanticism in an exploration of intimacy and desire, in which she unravels and attempts to reimagine interpersonal relationships outside of romantic and sexual norms. Both her academic and personal experiences as a biracial white and Chinese-American woman have instilled in her a deep investment in bringing visibility to the stories and lived experiences of queer and transgender women of color.
Nathalie Raiz-Anaya
Engagement Coordinator
Nathalie I. Raiz-Anaya was first introduced to QWOCMAP as a participant in their Filmmaking Workshop in 2019. She was born in Oakland and raised in Hayward, CA. Her community and her first-generation Mexican-American experience has guided the way she approaches her creativity. In 2018 she graduated from the BECA program at San Francisco State University. She also completed a second major in Communication. She is a queer storyteller and producer/editor that is dedicated to creating points of access and empowering storytelling that speaks to her community.
Fiza Jihan
Training & Media Coordinator
Fiza Jihan is a filmmaker who first joined QWOCMAP as a participant in the 2018 Youth Filmmaker Training Program. Their creative work is devotional in nature, spiritually inclined and currently a reflection on grief, familial ties, migration, and friendship. Their processes inform each other and are integrated; they work with prose, videography, and sound to move through personal emotional realities and catalyze new somatic experiences for others.
Tori Flowers
Stanford QSR Fellowship
Tori Flowers is a junior at Stanford University, majoring in Urban Studies with a minor in Earth Systems. They hope to help create cities that prioritize the social, economic, and environmental needs of communities. In addition to this work, Tori has a deep passion for film which they have had pleasure in exploring through Stanford's Restorative Film Collective, a dedicated team of artists of color from various backgrounds, working to create films that uplift marginalized voices, perspectives, and stories. As a queer person of color, they look forward to working with QWOCMAP to continue to engage with and empower communities, connect with other passionate individuals that share aspects of my identity, and further delve into the beautiful world of film.
Den Legaspi
Arc & Type Designs
Den is responsible for QWOCMAP branding and designs all promotional materials, including the Festival Program Book, posters, and postcards.
Evelyn Ríos Stafford
Blue Star Business Services
Evelyn has put together QWOCMAP's 2018-2022 Festival websites. She is the head of Blue Star Business Services, a digital marketing agency that creates websites, runs social media accounts and online advertising, and provides a variety of creative services. She is a former television journalist with two Emmys. She is a trans woman of color living in the South.