OUR MISSION

The Seattle Asian American Film Fesetival's mission is to seek out, promote, produce, and develop Asian American artists with a commitment to original and innovative media works. New program directors Kevin Bang and Vanessa Au are leading the revival of SAAFF, continuing the work of the Northwest Asian American Film Festival (NWAAFF) directed by Wes Kim from 2003-2007.
 

MEET THE TEAM

Kevin Bang, Co-Director

A Seattle native, Kevin has worked in digital media his entire career -- first as a writer for the Seattle Times, then as an Interactive Producer for KCTS (PBS), and as Editor for Microsoft. Kevin was a strong advocate of the Northwest Asian American Film Festival before it went into hiatus in 2007. Kevin wants to grow and develop the festival into a mainstay for Seattle's APA community. Kevin is also starting on his own film project -- curating stories about Asian American artists, activists, entrepreneurs, and influencers who are defining and driving culture in Seattle.

Vanessa Au, Co-Director

Vanessa grew up in a suburb of Vancouver, B.C. and moved to San Francisco in 2000 to jump on the dot com boom. While residing in the Bay Area, she volunteered for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival for several years, and completed her M.A. at San Francisco State University. Vanessa moved to Seattle in 2006 to pursue her Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Washington and met Wes Kim, director of the Northwest Asian American Film Festival, which she vowed to bring back after finishing her dissertation. Six long years later, that dissertation, titled “Contemporary Popular Culture and the Politics of Asian American Representation, Resistance, and Cultural Production,” finally got done and Vanessa earned her doctorate. When she's not co-directing SAAFF, she serves as an adjunct lecturer at the UW, Digipen and Seattle University.

Martin Tran, Organizing Member

Martin was born, raised, educated, and currently lives in the Pacific NW.  And though he hopes to pass in a skydiving mishap over Belize, he also plans to be buried here as well.  He is deeply involved in the API community of Seattle; working to bring people together through art and politics (which in his mind are the same thing), mentoring the next generation of APIs, and attending many righteous potlucks but bringing little in return.  In the daytime he works for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in the evenings he volunteers in the International District, on the weekends he works on creative projects, and late at night he stares at the walls of his new home that refuse to paint themselves.  His favorite thing to do in the world is to sit around a fire with old and new friends, drink in hand, and talk story.

Christopher Patterson, Organizing Member

Christopher is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Washington, writing his dissertation on Southeast Asian Anglophone cultures, Asian America, and the genealogy of global multiculturalism. His articles have appeared in the SE Asian based journal, Manusya: Journal of the Humanities, as well as in the American based publication WorkingUSA:The Journal of Labor and Society. He publishes short fiction under the pen name Kawika Guillermo.

Su-ching Wang, Organizing Member

Su-ching is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English at the University of Washington. She is currently working on her dissertation “Rethinking ‘Women’s Work’: From American Domesticity to Racial Domestics.” Her academic interests include 20th Century American literature, comparative racialization of African Americans and Asian Americans, and women of color feminism. She was also a co-founder of the Asian American Studies Research Collective (2008-), a cross-disciplinary research cluster funded by the Simpson Center for the Humanities.

Victoria Ju, Organizing Member

Vicky is a University of Washington alum and Executive Director of Kollaboration Seattle and is very involved in the Seattle Chinese community, especially in the arts and the US-Chinese government organizations. Vicky's big dream is to put on professional events that help those in North America and Greater China to have a better understanding and connection in cultural, academic, business, and hi-tech fields.

Marites Mendoza, Organizing Member

Marites is a marketing associate at the Wing Luke Museum and manages all PR and media for SAAFF.



LeiLani Nishime, Organizing Member

LeiLani is a professor of Communication at the University of Washington where she teaches classes on race and gender in the media with a particular interest in Asian American media. She was born in Los Angeles and has lived in Michigan, San Francisco, Tokyo, and England. Four years ago she moved to Seattle and lives here with her partner and two sons. She has written a number of articles on science fiction, museums, and Asian Americans in the media. Her book on multiracial Asian Americans will be published next year.

Denzil Kriekenbeek, Organizing Member

Jack of all trades Denzil Kriekenbeek has at points in his mysterious past been: a spelling bee champion, an online advertising specialist, an island social director, a video game programmer, a dating coach, a sexy teen idol and a master crafter of run-on sentences.


Gina McDonald, Graphic Designer/Photographer

Gina has 5 years of experience in Advertising. After years of being an Interactive Project Manager, she chose to take a different path and made the move to be a Production Artist. She is now working her way to becoming a Designer. When she isn't in the office, you can find Gina with a camera around her neck as she has recently rekindled her relationship with photography and is enthusiastic about learning videography.  

Wes Kim, Advisor

Wes is writer, director, and producer of the award-winning short films "Profiles in Science," "Vision Test," and "Cookies for Sale." His films have appeared in nearly forty U.S. and international film festivals and have screened in seventeen countries. They've also been broadcast nationally on public and cable television and featured in programs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle. In addition to being a filmmaker, Wes directed Northwest Asian American Film Festival in Seattle, Washington, from 2003 to 2007.

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