Pamela Tom is an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker, director, screenwriter and producer. Her work has explored subjects ranging from art and identity to foster youth, women’s rights, and the Asian American experience. She’s filmed on location in the US, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

Pam’s work includes the multi-award winning feature documentary TYRUS, about Chinese American artist and Disney Legend, Tyrus Wong, the Emmy-winning PBS documentary Finding Home: A Foster Youth Story, about four teens transitioning out of foster care, the critically acclaimed Sundance short narrative film, Two Lies, about a Chinese American woman who undergoes plastic surgery to make her eyes appear rounder, and A Tribute to Sir Sidney, a feature documentary about legendary actor Sidney Poitier that aired on Bahamian television. Pam directed Sidney Poitier in a promotional short for Showtime’s Mandela and deKlerk and actor Keith David for the voice-over narration on the BBC documentary series, WWII: Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West.

Pam is an outspoken advocate for diversity and inclusion in the film industry. She served as the Director of Diversity at Film Independent where she spearheaded Project:Involve, a pioneering mentoring program for emerging BIPOC and LGBTQ filmmakers. She’s a former Walt Disney Writing Fellow and winner of numerous directing awards. She is a frequent guest speaker who’s spoken at the Walt Disney Company, Pixar Animation, Marriott International, Dropbox, Berkeley Public Library, Yale, Tufts, and countless universities.

Pam is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Film Fatales, a national organization of feature and television women directors, A-Doc, an Asian American documentary filmmaker group, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. She’s passionate about Chinese American history and is a member of the City of Los Angeles’ 1871 Los Angeles Chinese Massacre Memorial Steering Committee. She received her BA from Brown University and MFA from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. She’s a 5th-generation Chinese American Los Angeles native.

Pam is currently adapting The Celestial into a feature script which she plans to direct. Based on the short story by Edgar Award-winning author Naomi Hirahara, The Celestial is an Asian American Western set in 1890 Idaho that involves a Japanese prostitute who commits a crime to save the life of a Chinese miner.