Quick Facts
Biography
Karin Lee is a Canadian filmmaker, artist, writer, and producer. She is an adjunct professor of film at the University of British Columbia.
Biography
Lee has written, directed and produced documentary, narrative film and video installations and co-founded Top Dollar Sisters Productions, a film production house, in Vancouver. She is also the great granddaughter of Tsang Quon, a Chinese pioneer who immigrated to Canada in the 1870s‚ lived and worked in Barkerville, BC and Mah Bing Kee, a businessman who immigrated to Canada around 1903 and lived in Nanaimo, BC. Her father Wally Lee, ran a Chinese Communist bookstore in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside - Hastings Street from the 1960s-1980s‚ called China Arts and Crafts and in 2004 Karin completed a film about him called Comrade Dad . Notably, in 2001 she received a Gemini Award for her documentary Made in China, the story of adopted Chinese children in Canada.
Awards and Nominations
| Year | Award | Result |
| 2017 | Vancouver Women in Film and Television, Excellence in Education Award | Won |
| Vancouver YWCA Woman of Distinction in Education, Training and Development | Nominated | |
| 2014 | City of Vancouver Mayor‚ Arts Awards, 2014 Film and New Media Artist | Won |
| 2013 | Golden Sheaf Award, Yorkton Short Film Festival - Passage of Dreams | Nominated |
| 2011 | Vancouver Women in Film and Television Festival, Best Diversity Award -Cedar and Bamboo | Won |
| 2008 | North American Asian Professionals NAAP, Vancouver, Community Recognition: Spotlight on Leadership | Nominated |
| 2007 | BC Leo Awards, Channel M, Diversity in Cultures - Our Family Pictures | Won |
| 2001 | Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, Gemini: Made in China | Won |
| San Diego Asian Film Festival, Best Feature Documentary - Made in China | Won | |
| Hawaii International Film Festival, Best Feature Documentary - Made in China | Won | |
| Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, Golden Sheaf Award nominee - Made in China | Won |
Selected filmography
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Plan B |  N | N | N | 22 min Drama, HD Video |
| 2012 | Passage of Dreams | N | N | N | 22 mins, Documentary Video |
| Million Dollar Mile | N | N | N | 48 min Drama, 6 channel Video Installation | |
| 2011 | Small Pleasures | N | N | N | 5 min Drama, Video |
| 2010 | 1788 ‚ A history of Chinese and First Nations in BC | N | 10 min, Documentary Video | ||
| Cedar and Bamboo | N | 22 min, Documentary, HD, Video | |||
| 2009 | Little Heaven and Earth | N | N | N | 20 min Drama, Video |
| 2007 | Shattered | N | N | N | 22 min, 2 Channel Site Specific Video Installation |
| 2005 | Comrade Dad | N | N | N | 26 min 16mm video |
| Oysters and Chocolate | N | 6 min single channel video (also: Cinematographer/Editor) | |||
| 2004 | Sunflower Children | N | N | 20 min documentary (also: Cinematographer/Editor) | |
| 2000 | Made in China | N | N | 47 min documentary video | |
| 1998 | Canadian Steel, Chinese Grit | N | N | 48 min documentary video | |
| 1997 | Songs of the Phoenix‚ Voices of Chinese women | N | N | 11 min documentary video | |
| 1994 | My Sweet Peony | N | N | N | 30 min drama 16mm |
| 1989 | Dragonlines | N | Documentary Video |