She is a writer and director of award-winning feature films, numerous shorts and has created site specific installations and theatre.

Her family, who had originally left Maoist China, settled in Vancouver as part of the first wave of Chinese immigration.

At the age of 19, Shum decided that she wanted to be a filmmaker after watching a film by Peter Weir titled, Gallipoli.

From Gallipoli she discovered that "one, you could make a film that wasn't American-centric as well as find an audience and two, you could marry beautiful visuals with a very intimate story.

[4] Although she is often pigeonholed as a "Chinese-Canadian woman film director," Shum prefers to be known as an "independent filmmaker", rather than one of national identity.

"[6] Shum describes herself as being an enthusiastic consumer of ideas, movies, art, theatre, music, dance, fiction, and non-fiction.

"[7] Shum's first short film, Picture Perfect, is a 1989 release about a man obsessed with pornography and the effects of media on his personal life.

Her most recent short film titled, Hip Hop Mom, was released online in 2011 and has garnered thousands of hits.

Double Happiness, is a semi-autobiographical film based on Shum's early experiences of leaving home as a teenager.

Drive, She Said, is about a woman that is willingly taken hostage by a bank robber and accompanies him cross country to visit his ailing mother and her estranged family.

[5] In February 2014, Shum began shooting in Montreal on a National Film Board of Canada feature documentary entitled Ninth Floor, about the Sir George Williams Affair student protest.