Opening this year on 19th October at ODEON Leicester Square with Hwang Dong- hyuk’s historical drama The Fortress, as an international premiere, the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) will run for 11 days from 19th to 29th October.

It will close with Takeshi Kitano’s latest yakuza film that completes the Outrage trilogy, Outrage Coda.

Building on the success of last year’s first edition, LEAFF 2017 will showcase enchanting stories, insightful discussions, and diverse filmic voices from South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. Screenings, including 7 international premieres, 7 European premieres, 13 UK premieres, will take place at prominent venues around central London: including ODEON Leicester Square, Picturehouse Central, Regent Street Cinema, Empire Cinema Haymarket, ODEON Panton Street, and East London’s Rich Mix.

There will be seven strands that run throughout the festival: Official Selection, Hong Kong: Now and Then (1997-2017), Stories of Women, Festival Focus, Retrospective, Competition, and Special Highlights Screenings. These sections have been carefully curated and programmed by Festival Director Hyejung Jeon, with Festival Advisors Roger Garcia (Hong Kong International Film Festival) and Mark Adams (Artistic Director, Edinburgh International Film Festival); Programmers Jasper Sharp (Critic), Chanel Kong (Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival) and Eunyoung Mo (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival); and Programme Consultant Damon Wise (Critic).

The overarching theme of LEAFF 2017 is “time” and the perception of “time”. Opening with a period drama that is set in 1636, through the selection of films, different generations are shown through stories from East Asia. Through the Special Highlights Screenings, the audience are able to revisit animations from Japan that have never been shown on the big screen, celebrating the 100 years of Japanese anime. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, we look back at how Hong Kong cinema has shaped contemporary cinema over the twenty years. In all sections, social issues related to time is demonstrated, whether that is addressing historical events and hardships, or simply a relationship between a mother and a daughter.