The 10th London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) concluded on Sunday with a glittering closing ceremony, where director Lee Hwan’s Project Y captured the Best Feature Award. Starring Han So Hee and Jeon Jong Seo, the tense thriller follows two women who plan a high-risk heist in a bid to escape their harsh realities. The jury praised the film’s bold reimagining of the noir genre through a distinctly female lens, applauding its focus on women’s agency as the central source of desire, tension, and moral conflict. Project Y was hailed as a groundbreaking work that expands the narrative and aesthetic frontiers of Asian cinema. In the festival’s Artificial Intelligence section, Kang Yoon Sung’s Middle Earth earned the Future of Asian Cinema Award, while the event closed with a screening of National Treasure by Korean-Japanese filmmaker Lee Sang Il. Reflecting on the festival’s decade-long evolution, LEAFF Executive Committee Chair Jeon Hye Jeong expressed pride in how the event has grown from a small initiative into the United Kingdom’s leading platform for Asian cinema, emphasizing its continued commitment to innovation, inclusivity, and artistic diversity.
