My name is Jin Lim, I am a trans and queer, Korean independent animation filmmaker whose work explores the body in relation to the Asian American diaspora, queerness, culture, and gender identity. Since coming out in the summer of 2024, my works have tonally shifted from the soft, conventionally beautiful, chaste femininity to a more sporadic, loud, unabashedly messy queer experience.
My first queer film Thank You For Your Love (2025), reflects on my queer awakening and the liberation of gender norms, celebrating bodies through humorous, kinky movement and visuals. My current film-in-progress, Where Are Your Breasts?, intimately explores gender identity and the conflicting cultural ideals set within the familial immigrant diaspora through BDSM. The film incorporates fragmented personal family footage from the 1990s-2000s, combined with animated collage and hand drawn frames, creating an ever-changing, dysfunctional atmosphere devoid of consistency and or a stagnant visual style.
As my work increasingly centers on gender expression and the body, I've become interested in directly engaging my own physical body with film. By exploring the concept of expanded cinema, I aim to deconstruct the familiar and open myself to new and innovative possibilities in filmmaking through performance, multimedia, and interactivity. I seek to move beyond just the black box, creating spaces that welcome the audiences as active participants in my video and film installations, while further emphasizing the beauty, urgency, and relevance of queer, poc, and trans identity.