Luna Lab

Excited to share that I was selected for the inaugural Luna Lab which is designed to accomplish Luna Media’s goal of advancing representation in the film industry through workshops, meetings and mentorship. You can read about it here in The Hollywood Reporter.

Since June, I’ve been spending every other Saturday with a select group of Southeast Asian writers and filmmakers in intensive story development sessions. Each day is highly structured with peer review, mentor feedback, four to six industry guests and panelists per session and pitch practice. The four-month curriculum culminated with a pitch session to industry guests at Rideback Rise on September 17th, 2026.

I applied to the lab with a roadtrip dramedy I wrote a few years back called Lino’s Vortex. It’s about an aging Filipino hippie who hustles casinos and trips out on shrooms. One day while tripping out, Lino sees the universe open up to him, but really he’s having a heart attack. Alone with nobody else to take care of him except his estranged grandson Dan, who is after Lino’s valuable LA house, they strike a deal to go looking for the mythical portal in exchange for Lino’s home. Shenanigans and family bonding ensue.

Lino's Vortex is one of six projects the cohort workshopped together over these four months. And that cohort is what made this lab different from any I've been part of before.

I’ve written about the friendships and bonds you can build with other writers, filmmakers and mentors at artist development programs such as these in the past. The difference with this particular one is that it is built on a mutual cultural rootedness that is very supportive and disarming. There’s a certain flow that happens when a solid cultural foundation like that exists from the start. There’s a shorthand that comes from commonality and less time spent trying to figure out where the other is coming from allowing everyone to get right into the work.

Guest speakers were predominantly AAPI filmmakers, executives and industry leaders who look like us and have built careers we all aspire to. It makes a big difference. A strong sense of Hope is common in immigrant communities, but Hope is predicated on something that is yet to materialize. Interacting with people from your own community directly across from you and describe how they did it moves you past hope into possibility. The significance of which is that possibility grounded in living evidence instead of aspiration, powers a career.

I’m extremely grateful to Munika Lay and Toni Wang, founders of Luna Media, for always championing Southeast Asian voices, creating the space and time to guide us through our projects despite their demanding schedules. I sincerely appreciate the time all of the guest speakers took to share their invaluable knowledge with us, access to whom I will never take for granted.

I’m honored to have been selected for this lab but even more proud of being associated with my talented cohort who have important, fun, scary, sultry, and hilarious stories to share with the world. You can learn more about them and their projects below.

Congratulations to them all, and to Munika and Toni for building Luna Lab - a space that made this possible. In case you are wondering what representation looks like when it’s build with intention, look no further.

Bunthoeun Real - Bunthoeun Real is a Cambodian American writer, director, and producer from Tacoma, Washington. He is best known for his short, Donut Boy, a story about a young Cambodian man who’s trying to get into the next tier of amateur boxing. It was awarded the Vin Di Bona Golden Circle Award from the Caucus Foundation and Best Drama at the USC First Look Award Ceremony as well as many other awards at various festivals and was selected for WME FutureFest. Donut Boy capped off the opening ceremony at the Cambodian International Film Festival. Bunthoeun is a graduate of USC where he received his MFA in Film and Television Production and is mentored by Emmy winner, Greg Yaitanes. Bunthoeun hopes to inspire others like himself to tell their stories.

Phet Mahathongdy - As a child, Phet and her family fled her birth country of Laos to escape a threat on her father’s life. Sponsored by a Lutheran Church in Montana, the family eventually settled in Colorado. She left home to study literature and writing at the George Washington University as well as classical theatre at The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. Upon graduation, she made her way to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the arts, acting in commercials before landing roles in film and television. After starting a family in 2009, she focused on more behind the camera endeavors, reading and developing screenplays for production companies, eventually segueing into creating her own works. She hopes to shed some light on growing up as part of the 1.5th generation of immigrants by creating work for a populous that often gets overlooked and under represented in media.

Saila Reyes - Saila Reyes is a Los Angeles-born filmmaker known for her emotionally charged, visually lush storytelling. Her work blends crime and sensuality, subverting memory and myth - crafted for those who ache, question, and long. A graduate of NYU Tisch and a Universal Pictures’ Emerging Writers Fellow, Saila has written across borders and mediums: in feature rooms in Hong Kong, television in Mexico City, video games in Korea, and both studio and indie productions in New York and L.A. She currently serves as the Director of Marketing and Programmer for Vidiots Foundation, running a movie theatre and video store that has become a cultural hub of Los Angeles while providing equitable access to film for all.
Saila is currently seeking financing for her debut feature, In the Smoke of You, a lyrical feature about longing, betrayal, and radical love.

Samantha Tan - Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Samantha has led multiple lives across three continents as an actress, writer, director, chef-entrepreneur and former professional dancer in Malaysia, UK and USA. She is the first Malaysian in history to become a Lifetime Member of The Actors Studio. Samantha is the creator and star of Ally Chia on Amazon Prime Video and its prequel series Ally Chia Begins on YouTube.
Samantha was the first Malaysian ever to be accepted into the MFA Acting program at Actors Studio Drama School NYC, and raised $105,000 of her tuition in 2 weeks through a combination of global crowdfunding and four scholarships. She will forever be grateful to the generous souls around the world who made her training in storytelling possible.

Tom Dang - Tom Dang is an actor, director, writer and filmmaker of Vietnamese descent. He is a company member of PlaygroundLA and was recently awarded membership to Director’s Lab West. He was also a founding member of Theatre Battery as well as the producing artistic director of his own theatre company REBATEnsemble Theatre Group. As a writer, Tom focuses on original work and has authored over ten scripts for theatre companies across the US. He is currently adapting a play that was committed through the Song Collective Writer’s Lab into a feature length urban superhero drama.

Nico Wan - Nico Wan is a writer with a background in corporate and venture capital law, bringing a structural, character- driven approach to storytelling. His work focuses on emotionally grounded stories with cultural staying power, designed to be both meaningful and economically producible. He has appeared on The Recruit alongside Teo Yoo and Noah Centineo, and is currently developing his original feature film LI LEE, partially financed and set to shoot later this year.