EXCLUSIVE: Peter Luo’s Stars Collective has optioned the life rights of Pichaya Soontornyanakij, also known as “Chef Pam.”
Pam is a Thai-Chinese-Australian chef and the owner of POTONG, a Thai-Chinese fine-dining Michelin-star restaurant in Bangkok’s Chinatown.
Stars Collective is currently developing and financing a feature film based on Pam’s life, with Luo set as producer.
Nancy Xu, co-CEO of Stars Collective, will co-produce the project with Luo.
Luo is CEO of Starlight Media and has backed movies like Crazy Rich Asians, Crazy Stories To Tell In The Dark and Malignant.
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Pam is the first and youngest Thai female chef to receive both the Michelin Star and “Opening of the Year” awards from the Michelin Guide in 2023, before being crowned Asia’s Best Female Chef 2024 by World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
In the 1880s, Pam’s family migrated to Thailand from Fujian, in southern China. Pam’s ancestor opened the 120-year-old “POTONG Pharmacy” in a building she inherited, which later became the POTONG restaurant. Pam opened POTONG at the end of 2021.
Born and raised in Bangkok, Pam was a 2013 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America.
Stars Collective recently optioned the film rights to the non-fiction book Fortune Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization, and is developing a film adaptation with Donna Gigliotti (Shakespeare in Love, Silver Linings Playbook).
The company also optioned the film and TV rights of Shawn M. Warner’s mystery story Leigh Howard and the Ghosts of Simmons – Pierce Manor.
Last year, Stars Collective announced that it will team up with Chinese financier Hana Investments on a $300M “cross media fund to invest in comics, films, games, collectibles, consumer goods, artificial intelligence and metaverse technology.
“We’re excited to make a movie based on Chef Pam’s remarkable story, focusing on her career, feelings, dreams and frustrations — the real life experiences that shaped who she is today,” said Peter Luo. “For instance, leaving New York was not just about a breakup from a relationship, but about pursuing her own life, career and the making of POTONG with hardships, obstacles and many failures along the way. The movie will of course explore her understanding of food, Thai food, and cooking. Her story makes a great theme for a movie — you have to experience real local life and things that happen in life to find the true meaning of food.”
Chef Pam said: “I’m humbled that many people who interview me like to talk about my accomplishments and success, but no one really knows the difficulties and setbacks I’ve faced on my journey. For me, the hardest days of my life were the time in New York and building POTONG during Covid at the same time with my pregnancy.”
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