{"id":45960,"date":"2025-09-05T20:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T20:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45960\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T20:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T20:23:09","slug":"shih-ching-tsou-sean-baker-talk-left-handed-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45960\/","title":{"rendered":"Shih-Ching Tsou & Sean Baker Talk Left-Handed Girl\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt has been a whirlwind four months for Taiwanese American director Shih-Ching Tsou<\/a>, whose debut feature Left-Handed Girl<\/a> makes its North American premiere at TIFF<\/a> this weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe emotional family drama revolves around a single mother and her two daughters who are coming to terms with city life in Taipei after several years of living in the countryside.<\/p>\n

\n\tTheir move back to the Taiwanese capital, where the mother sets up a food stand in a buzzing night market, brings them into closer proximity with her family. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not a particularly happy reunion for the youngest daughter I-Jing. Her left-handedness upsets her superstitious grandfather, who tells her never to use her \u201cdevil hand\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter taking more than two decades to get the feature over the line, Tsou\u2019s career has shot into top gear since the spring, with Left-Handed Girl world premiering in Cannes Critics\u2019 Week in May<\/a>; being acquired for most global territories by Netflix<\/a> in June and then selected as Taiwan\u2019s 2026 Oscar entry<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn between times, the film has been touring the festival circuit, recently touching down at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Poland and Melbourne, and next heads to the Deauville American Film Festival and London after TIFF.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy life has gotten so much better. People are contacting me to find out what I\u2019m doing next. Agents and managers are reaching out. \u00a0I have a lot more opportunities and doors opening. Hopefully, I will be able to make my next film much quickly,\u201d Tsou tells Deadline ahead of the Toronto<\/a> premiere.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to Left-Handed Girl, Tsou was best known as a close collaborator of Cannes Palme d\u2019Or and Oscar-winning director Sean Baker<\/a>, whom she met while studying at \u00a0The New School\u2019s School of Media Studies in New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe pair co-directed, wrote and produced the 2004 film Take Out, about an illegal Chinese immigrant who gets on the wrong side of debt collectors. Tsou would then collaborate on Baker\u2019s solo directed features Starlet, Tangerine and The Florida Project.<\/p>\n

\n\tTalking to Deadline back in May prior to Cannes, Tsou and Baker recounted how the idea for Left-Handed Girl had grown out of the former\u2019s experiences as a child.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLike in the film, my grandfather told me that my left hand was the devil\u2019s hand. I told Sean about this, and he was like, \u2018Wow, we can write a story about it\u2019. We went to Taiwan<\/a> in 2002 and shot a short trailer with still photos cut together,\u201d recounted Tsou, who is left-handed but was educated to use her right-hand as a child.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we came back to New York, we made Take Out together, and put Left-handed Girl on the backburner, thinking that maybe if we made that first, we would be able to get funding more easily. Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t happen. It wasn\u2019t the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker went on to make solo feature Prince of Broadway in 2008 and in 2010, prior to the shoot of his next film Starlet in 2011, the pair spent more than a month in Taiwan working on the project again.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c2010 is when we decided, we\u2019re going to do this. Up to that point, it was only a couple of treatments, and a trailer that we threw together to find financing but the 2010 trip was the trip when we said, \u2018Let\u2019s spend over a month there and really absorb the environment\u2019. We often make our films with a focus on location. We wanted to find the right night market and the right binlang stand (betel-nut stands traditionally run by pretty young girls) and flesh it out in many ways,\u201d said Baker.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile this research trip solidified their belief in the project, it would take another 15 years to get the film over the line.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe just couldn\u2019t find financing for it. It was very difficult, a fully Mandarin language film. We wanted Shih-Ching to solo direct it. It took until after The Florida Project for interest to start picking-up,\u201d said Baker.<\/p>\n

\n\tTsou credits French film company Le Pacte for helping to kickstart financing, after they showed the distributor the screenplay in 2021 following the Cannes premiere of Baker\u2019s Red Rocket on which it held rights for France. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLe Pacte\u2019s Jean and Alice Labadie take producer credits alongside Tsou and Baker as well as Mike Goodridge at UK company Good Chaos.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrincipal photography eventually began in July 2022, with Taipei\u2019s real-life Tonghua Night Market acting as one of the key backdrops, which came with its own set of challenges.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe couldn\u2019t block off anything. We\u2019d have had to block off 10 stands to do that, but we didn\u2019t have that kind of budget. We only rented one noodle stand on the corner, hoping we\u2019d be able to get through the shoot without any problems,\u201d said Tsou.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt took us a month to convince the stand owner to let us use the stand\u2026 and we had to talk to all the neighbors, because they were worried about how it might affect their business too,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe production worked with a team of just five people for those scenes in a bid to not attract too much attention.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt one point, our actress was on the noodle stand and we were working on a scene, when a passerby came-up to the stand and tried to order noodles from her,\u201d recounted Tsou, who kept the cameras rolling.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe market is one of the characters, not just the backdrop. I think the audience can feel that when you follow little girl into the night market, you see all the color, hear the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie features Taiwanese household name actress and model Janel Tsai in her weightiest role to date as the mother while her two daughters are played by Instagram discovery Shih-Yuan Ma and child star Nina Ye.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker, who edited the film alongside co-writing and producing, praises Tsou\u2019s casting.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShih-Ching produced, directed, cast, everything. I was only involved at the beginning stage and the end stage,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cComing in afterwards and seeing the footage as one of the co-writers, it was interesting to see all the choices that Shih-Ching made.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the really satisfying parts was how wonderfully she cast it because that\u2019s when I saw the characters coming to life, and they were how I imagined the characters to be\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaker highlighted big screen debutant Shih-Yuan Ma, for her performance as the rebellious, troubled older daughter I-Ann.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was such a pleasure to edit her stuff, because in every take, she was giving Shih-Ching such a consistently strong performance, and every take was slightly different. For a first timer to have already that much method behind her performance, that much confidence, it was incredible to watch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was really taken aback when I heard that Shih-Ching had cast her from Instagram and that she was a model. Because that rarely works, the model-turned actor-thing. But, my god, she\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShih-Yuan Ma\u2019s character of I-Ann is the lynchpin to the drama, hinging on a series of family secrets that come to a head during a big family get together in an explosion of emotion, with hints of Mike Leigh.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe ending definitely has elements of Secret and Lies,\u201d admitted Tsou. \u201cWe\u2019ve also watched a lot of Dogma films, things like The Celebration. There\u2019s a lot of human emotion, and questions around how you deal with human emotion and make peace with yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTsou is now gearing up for the awards season circuit following the film\u2019s selection as Taiwan\u2019s entry in a competitive field.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere were 11 candidates this year. We had our fingers crossed but it wasn\u2019t a given, so I was very, happy when it was announced,\u201d says the director. \u00a0\u201cI want to bring Taiwan to the world stage so that people will get to know the country a little more, maybe even want to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a spotlight that has taken on extra resonance amid tensions in Taiwan over concerns that China could be gearing up to act on its long-held goal to bring the self-governing island state under its control.<\/p>\n

\n\tTsou is also looking forward to rolling the film out in Taiwan this fall with a compact indie release. As is common, in the territory, she is overseeing the release as the producer of the film.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt will be a reasonable release of 36 to 40 screens. It\u2019s an indie film. We have to realistic. In Taiwan, its often the producers who oversee the release. I\u2019ve hired freelancers to work on the promotion but I am basically self-distributing in Taiwan,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix<\/a> will give the film a limited theatrical release in the U.S. on November 14 ahead of its launch on the platform on November 28.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHaving the film be made available to 300 million people all over the world is a really big deal. Not many Taiwanese films get shown to the world. It\u2019s a big step for a Taiwanese film,\u201d says Tsou.<\/p>\n

\n\tLooking beyond the awards season, the filmmaker has a number of ideas on the boil but nothing firmed-up yet.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI want to put all my \u00a0attention on Left-Handed Girl right now. Having spent years making it happen, I want to celebrate that, and then after take a little break and figure out what I really want to do next,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have a lot of different ideas. One is a New York story, one is another Taiwanese story, and then I also have stories set in Japan, and in Italy,\u201d she adds, noting they are all personal stories inspired by friends and acquaintances. \u201cI want to dive into a different culture, a different country, to kind of study it and make a film that still tells a very human story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTsou also hopes to keep collaborating with Baker on some level. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis film is very special to me because it was the first idea we wanted to make together and we made Take Out instead. Now we\u2019ve come full circle, and made the film we wanted to make at the very beginning,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI want to make my own films and tell my own stories but at the same I would love to work with Sean again, and of course have him edit my films.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCheck out the new official trailer for Left-Handed Girl below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a whirlwind four months for Taiwanese American director Shih-Ching Tsou, whose debut feature Left-Handed Girl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[34387,34388,18,117,19,17,34389,327,127,34390,34391,380,11523,15935,13245],"class_list":{"0":"post-45960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-best-international-feature-film","9":"tag-cannes-critics-week","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-left-handed-girl","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-netflix","17":"tag-sean-baker","18":"tag-shih-ching-tsou","19":"tag-taiwan","20":"tag-tiff","21":"tag-toronto","22":"tag-toronto-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}