The Seattle Asian American Film Festival returned for its 13th year this month. The festival was composed of several programs, including an opening night centered on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, a Native Hawaiian Showcase, and a Queer AF Shorts collection. Another highlight of the festival was the Bring it Home: Pacific Northwest Shorts program, held on June 21 at the Broadway Performance Hall. Featuring 11 films, the program was a celebration of the diversity of AAPI experiences in the Pacific Northwest.

The 2025 Seattle Asian American Film Festival (SAAFF) kicked off its two days of in-person screenings on June 20 and continues virtually through June 29. The opening night screened Reflections & Legacies, a feature-length compilation of films focused on stories of refugees and immigrants of Southeast Asian communities into the United States. While only a few hours of programming in a shorter-than-usual SAAFF, the evening captured a deeper sense of meaning and community than its schedule would suggest.

For the uninitiated, the Triple Door is a longtime dinner-and-a-show venue in Seattle’s downtown that seats some 300, The Sound of Strip is an improv burlesque show set to the music of a live cover of The Cure, and Ruby Mimosa (aka The Effervescent EnterTEASER) is a local star noted as one of the most influential performers in the world by 21st Century Burlesque and the genius mind behind BurlesKaraoke.

Jasmine Joshua and Heather Ragusa’s musical Here & Their, starring Chloe Payne and Meg McLynn, is shaping up to be a new Queer musical classic! With top-tier vocals, witty lines, and songs that are sometimes hilarious and sometimes heart-wrenching, Here & Their brings a fresh perspective on Queer stories that many of us can relate to as well as creates levity during these dark times. This musical is joyous, hopeful, and feels like finally taking a deep breath after a tense and stressful start to 2025.

Sometimes, to see yourself reflected back at you can be a radical experience. 
This was how it felt at Moving History – The Queercrow Archive, Volume 3 on June 8 at Northwest Film Forum. The event was the third annual installment of a collaborative project between two Seattle nonprofits devoted to preserving history through video: Scarecrow Video and MIPoPS (Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound). 

Base Camp Studios 2 isn’t just a studio space. It’s a community. It’s a reminder that art lives through people, through shared space, and through the simple act of saying, “Hey, come take a look.” If you are looking for art that moves, surprises, and welcomes you, head to Base Camp. You won’t just see the art. You’ll feel it.

While the play had a lot of workshopping to do, its commentary was important. It gave a wide representation of LGBTQ+ lives and showed the isolation felt beneath the weight of conservative cultures throughout the world. It also showed the resilience of Queer communities in the face of oppression and brought the conflicts in the Middle East centerstage, demanding viewers to remember them. 

When asked to attend the 2^nd annual Seattle Fetish Ball and write about it, I only had one question at first: What do you even wear to fetish balls? I’m the type of person that needs to look at menus, check parking, and figure out how long a walk from place to place is. I like being informed, but mostly I have a fear of being or looking out of place. Luckily, they had guidelines. Fetish wear required, it was clearly intended to be a safe space for the fetish/kink/alternative communities.

Whole Washington hosted their first philanthropy event to raise money and support toward universal health care. Many health professionals and volunteers joined recognizable political and nonprofit community leaders at The Historic Mt. Baker Community Center on May 17.

This year’s SIFF has served us a remarkable collection of films. Three of my favorite films from this year all have friendship as a core theme: Ka Whawhai Tonu, The Balconettes, and She’s the He. 

Documentaries like Between Goodbyes, Viktor, and Seeds are an invigorating style of non-fiction storytelling. These films evolve the genre beyond what we perceive as documentaries. Documentary filmmaking, like narrative filmmaking, sets out to tell a story and so it makes sense to tell the story in a way that makes sense for the subject and material. These three forge their own path and are all the better for it.

The theme of this year’s SIFF is “Escape to the Reel World,” and with passport in hand, attendees get to travel the globe seeing stories from all over the world—opening your eyes, your ears, and your soul.

Here are just a few of some of the many movies worth a look:

It has been an amazing week of films, both international and domestic, at the Seattle International Film Festival. While I have been enjoying many films from around the world, I must give an enthusiastic shout-out to three films that hail from the northern climes of Scandinavia—specifically, Denmark and Norway.

There's nothing quite like opening night. There's an electricity in the air as tents go up, marquees are set, and the staff makes final checks in their walkie talkies. Of course, it wouldn't be opening night of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) without at least a drizzle of rain, which began coming down in earnest around the time the red carpet arrivals kicked off.

Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, Heidi Grace Acuña presented their debut fashion show with Living Waling Waling, held early May 2025. Acuña partnered with Seattle Center and was selected to represent and uplift  emerging and established local AAPI artists. Acuña is a multidisciplinary artist who has appeared on TV, galleries across the West Coast, and was a finalist at Fruit Bowl. Born in Washington and raised in Hawai’i, Acuña moved from sculpture to fashion and brought a colorful bouquet of upcycled and sustainable clothing through their designs. 

On a Saturday night in April in the Denny Triangle neighborhood, vintage glamour was present at the doors of Seattle’s Kremwerk complex. DJ duo Théque Support (composed of Hot N’ Spicy Disco and Moonlighter) were bringing their monthly evening of Disco Dust to Seattle, with a set from special guest Heidy P visiting from New York. Moonlighter and Hot N’ Spicy Disco are both from Detroit, the official birthplace of techno and a continuing hub of electronic music innovation. At the duo’s monthly disco parties, hosted in Kremwerk’s newest dance room, Cherry, they go old-school, dusting off vinyl records and using turntables.

The 2025 Cascadia Film Festival was a weekend full of inspiring women directors, producers, and their amazing films. From stories of scrappy heroines and documentaries rich in wisdom, the festival brought audiences from across Washington and farther. The weekend kicked off with a screening and talkback from honored guest Yvonne Russo. Russo is a director and producer known for her work in Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae (2024), The Heart Stays (2024), and Viva Verdi (2024) the film that opened the festival as a Pacific Northwest premiere. 

Created by Eva Anderson, Derek Bishé, Mali Elfman, Eric Hoff, Tommy Honton, and E3W Productions (Aaron Keeling, Austin Keeling, Natalie Jones), AOTW is a completely new flavor of production. The focus of AOTW is to create a deeper relationship between art and its participants, and the entrancing world of The Shape of the Night is completely enrapturing, entangling you in the story, performance, and atmosphere. The Shape of the Night is an art gallery, an escape room, a drag show, a play, and a magical realm.

On a Friday night in Capitol Hill, a crowd of eager theater-goers entered through the unassuming front doors of Seattle Open Arts Place to watch the debut of a new theater company. Well Behaved Women and Co were putting on their inaugural production, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play).

So naturally, when Dacha Theatre, who so often defies the status quo of theatre, took on Kate Hamill’s Emma, they began the show by having audience members pluck up the women’s etiquette guide pages—which had been left on every seat—and shred them, stating they were throwing etiquette out the door.

Audience members held onto these shreds and threw them when cued. The pieces fluttered down as white confetti upon the jubilant opening wedding scene of Mrs. Weston (Kayla Walker), and Mr. Weston (Van Lang Pham).