For Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker, the road to making Left-Handed Girl lasted about as long as they’ve known each other — which is to say, about 25 years. They met in 1999 at the New School in New York, where Tsou was a graduate student in media studies and Baker was taking editing courses after graduating from New York University. (“If my directing career doesn’t pan out, what was I going to fall back on? I was like, ‘I better get a craft under my belt,’” Baker says.) They bonded over a shared taste in films and told stories about their upbringing. One of Tsou’s memories, from her childhood in her native Taiwan, sparked Baker’s interest: Her grandfather saw her use a knife with her left hand, and told her that was the “devil’s hand.”
“That sense of shame and guilt always stayed with me, because I felt like I did something wrong,” Tsou says now. As Baker recalls, of what intrigued him: “If a young girl suddenly thought her hand was being controlled by the devil, how would that play out? Where could we find some drama and comedy in that situation?”
We can flash-forward to now and see those questions were well worth asking. Left-Handed Girl, which marks Tsou’s solo directorial debut (she produced and wrote the script with Baker, who also edited), premiered to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival; it was acquired by Netflix and is now Taiwan’s submission for the best international feature Oscar. But it took the pair decades to find the financing to make the movie. They’d have to prove themselves again and again, with Baker directing and Tsou producing such award-winning indies as Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket. By the time Tsou could finally, officially start pre-production, Baker realized he wouldn’t be able to join the shoot, as he was deep into Anora — the film that’d go on to win him four Oscars, including for best picture.
Set in Taipei, Left-Handed Girl filters Tsou’s initial inspiration point from her childhood through five-year-old I-Jing (Nina Ye), who’s traumatized by the left-handed admonishment while also adjusting to a move back to the city with her older sister, I-Ann (Shih-Yua Ma), and mother, Chu-Fen (Janel Tsai), who runs a night-market stall. The choice to tell a rich, three-generational story of Taiwanese women honored the deeper pain that lingered for Tsou after the “devil’s hand” comment from her youth.
“It’s not just a left hand — it’s about, you cannot be yourself, you have to hide because they want you to be like other people,” Tsou says. “All the characters are part of me because, growing up in Taiwan, that’s how I felt. You have a lot of restrictions, a lot of limitations and expectations put on girls especially. You have to have fair skin, you have to obey, you cannot talk back or express your emotions.”
Tsou first brought Baker to Taipei in 2001. He fell in love with the city, but the scope of the movie unfolding before him — vibrantly prowling the night markets and bustling streets — did not feel achievable as they were just beginning their careers. So they co-directed the Sundance premiere Take-Out on a $3,000 budget, and then kept making movies together — with Baker honing his particular skills in areas like street casting and shooting on location. They went back to Taipei in 2010 to flesh out the script, visiting a ton of night markets in the process, and polished up a trailer to try to secure funding. They got nowhere. “Asian cinema still wasn’t really a big thing then, and people didn’t like to watch movies with subtitles,” Tsou says.
That dynamic changed after Red Rocket was accepted into Cannes’ main competition in 2021. Before long, they were off to the races. Baker recently looked back at the first trailer he and Tsou cut together way back in 2001, in which Tsou played the mom. “It’s amazing to see how the vision has been retained,” he says. “The timeline isn’t ideal, but the outcome is ideal.”
Nina Ye and Shih-Yua Ma in ‘Left-Handed Girl’
During Baker’s awards campaign for Anora this past winter, he settled on a theme in his victory speeches: The vitality of keeping movies in theaters, specifically with extended exclusivity windows before they launch on digital. It’s notable that his first follow-up project as producer, editor, and writer has gone to Netflix, which is launching Left-Handed Girl with its customary limited two-week theatrical window (it hits Netflix on Nov. 28). Baker says Netflix’s offer out of Cannes was the only one to put the movie in the black. “Their business model is streaming, so you have to accept that, and then you have to weigh your options,” he says. “And one of the most important things is to pay back your financiers, or you’re not getting that opportunity again.”
As to how he feels about the film’s specific release plans? “It’s Shih-Ching’s solo directorial debut, and the millions of eyeballs that will be on this film because of the Netflix deal is something that she would not be able to get from traditional distribution — that’s very important for her as a career launch,” he says. “They’re also just extremely supportive in terms of listening to us. We are striking a 35mm print for some of our theatrical screenings. They are giving us this two week window, which I think is important. I’m trying to word this in a way that’s diplomatic for all — and maybe with my films, yes, where I am in my career, I am simply demanding now a three-month theatrical window.”
Both Baker and Tsou note the film has already played very well in Taiwan and around the world. “People are celebrating it,” Baker says. Tsou adds, “The response is really, really empowering.”
It’s safe to say the Netflix visibility will introduce more audiences to a significant new filmmaker, whose talent and point-of-view is evident from the ground up. Take the casting: Using what she’s learned producing Baker’s films for 20 years, Tsou knew to avoid casting anyone familiar. “I was determined to find my own stars — I want to show fresh faces,” she says. She found young Nina Ye after watching dozens of tapes via a social-media callout, while casting the sister took Tsou to Instagram. “My husband saw me doing that constantly — he said, ‘What are you doing? Why are you looking at Taiwanese girls on Instagram?’” Tsou recalls with a laugh. “I told him I’m casting!”
The film culminates in a major dramatic reveal at a family gathering, with the restless energy of Left-Handed Girl building toward a wrenching climax. Baker and Tsou knew their ending before writing the beginning of the movie, but when it came to shooting it, Tsou had to get creative. Most of the extras were her mothers’ actual friends. She shot documentary-style, so the four tables they had occupied could be made to look like far more. Filming the whole scene, which took three days, felt like experimental theater. “We had to close the set. The crew members had to stay out because we had four cameras shooting at the same time, circling 360,” she says. “The three [lead actors] were fighting on the stage and crying — and I turned around, and all the extras at the tables were crying too. Everybody was crying together.”
Baker couldn’t get to set at all. He had no idea what his longtime collaborator would deliver for her first solo movie. Then he spent a year with the Left-Handed Girl footage in the editing room, which Tsou had subtitled for him. (She also translated their original script, written in English, into the Mandarin that is spoken in the film.) “Seeing the choices she made, but also being just a little bit distanced from, it allowed me to approach all the footage in a very objective way,” he says. “I was impressed with her coverage and her confidence in terms of her craft. She knows what she wants.”
He was also struck by the power of the performances. “Some of this cast wasn’t even born when we came up with this idea,” Baker says. “I see it as this: It was all meant to be.”
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