LOVE OR BE LOVED IN 1400

Starting his career at Medicorp’s TVC arm in 2000, local talent Derrick Lui moved on to MTV Asia as a producer, writing and executing scripts for on-air promos, directing artist image spots in Singapore and the Philippines. Wanting to try different drama and documentary genres, he left MTV to freelance as a director/writer. His long list of works range from award winning short films to documentaries such as “The Medical Alphabet” for Channel News Asia, magazine/travelogue series “Flavours” for Mediaworks, to various dramas for Health Promotion Board and other corporate clients.

In 2010, a fruitful year resulted in his documentary, “Samsui Women”, being in competition at Raindance Film Festival in London, featured in Asiaticafilmmediale’s official selection in Rome (a showcase of Asia’s best films/directors), and was a finalist at Shanghai Film Festival in Shanghai.

In 2011, his latest short film, "When Night Fa11s", a poetic monologue of love, screened at Beloit International Film Festival in Wisconsin, and won the prestigious ‘Merit Award’ at I’ve Seen Films Festival in Milan, where famous Dutch actor Rutger Hauer personally handed the award to him. It went on to win 'Best Film', 'Best Director' and 'Best Editor' at International Movie Awards in Jakarta! A multi award winning Director, Derrick has spent the past years, travelling to various film festivals in the world, promoting film, the Singapore Film Industry, giving talks and involved in International discussion forums with esteemed filmakers.

Inspired by an unfortunate turn of true events in the past decade, Derrick has just completed his first independent feature film, 1400. It stars Mediacorp artistes Desmond Tan and Xu Yahui. 1400 had its World Premiere at the prestigious Festival des Films du Monde, and won Best Feature Film in Sydney’s flEXiff 2015!

Our reviewer has the honor to catch Derrick's first full length feature and here's his take on 1400.