It started in the 1980s as the Northwest Asian American Film Festival, and was organized in Seattle’s International District by staff members of the International Examiner Newspaper. Seattle-based artist and filmmaker Wes Kim revived the festival, running it from 2002 to 2007. He resigned as festival director in 2007 due to time constraints, and the team dissipated as a result.

One of the festival volunteers, Kevin Bang, wanted to revive it once more. In 2012, Kim connected Bang to then-Communications Professor Vanessa Au, who had also expressed interest in reviving the festival. Bang and Au began re-organizing the event, this time renaming it as the Seattle Asian American Film Festival, because the name of the city would resonate better, both locally and nationally, according to Bang. After a six-year hiatus, SAAFF was relaunched in 2013. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and the festival has steadily grown since then, moving to its current home at the Northwest Film Forum in 2015.

Eventually, like what happened to previous festival directors, life slowly pulled Bang and Au away from the festival. Staff member Martin Tran, afraid of losing SAAFF’s continuity yet again, volunteered to take over as director in 2016. After he left in 2019 and Au stepped down in 2020, the current directors Victoria Ju and Ellison Shieh weathered SAAFF through the pandemic.