Lydia Rui (she/they) is an award-winning Chinese Australian writer/director based in the UK. She won the 2020 Flickerfest Emerging Female Filmmaker Award and has been Australian Directors Guild Award nominated twice. She has a BFA in Film & TV from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and an MA in Directing Fiction from the National Film & Television School, with support from Screen Australia Enterprise and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust.

Their professional journey includes travelling globally as videographer for Beyonce’s Mrs Carter World Tour and working as an in-house director’s assistant for several years at Exit Films, home to Garth Davis. She has also served as second unit director for Nick Rowland’s BBC film, Floodlights. Last year, they completed BBC Writers: London Voices, as well as the BBC x EAST mentorship scheme with Emmy-nominated director, Weronika Tofilska. She continues to assist international directors on projects spanning from commercial to creative direction for world tours. She also tutors, with experience at the Young Filmmakers Academy, Central School of Speech and Drama, and NFTS.

Lydia’s feature film project, Counting Cards With My Father has received significant industry recognition (including selection for the 2023 TorinoScriptLab, where they won the ArteKino International Award) TIFF Filmmaker Lab, and Zurich Film Festival Academy. The film has secured development funding from Screen Australia. In 2024, the screenplay was nominated as one of five feature scripts for the industry-recognized Brit List.

Her short films have screened at Oscar and BAFTA qualifying festivals including Tribeca Film Festival, Melbourne International, Flickerfest International, Rhode Island International, HollyShorts, DOC NYC, and been Vimeo Staff Picked.