Celebrated director Shih-Ching Tsou debuts Left-Handed Girl at HIFF45
Shih-Ching Tsou is a master of filmmaking. Across her career, she has excelled as a screenwriter, director, producer, costume designer, production designer, actor, and editor. Tsou’s talents are apparent in her latest film, Left-Handed Girl, which Taiwan recently selected as its official entry for Best International Feature at the 98th Academy Awards. The filmmaker applies her trademark style of cultural specificity and emotional depth to explore the hopes, expectations, and challenges experienced by a mother and her two daughters in their new home amid a Taiwanese night market.
Left-Handed Girl is innately personal to Tsou: The concept—that the left hand is “the devil’s hand”—was something Tsou (who is left-handed) was told by her own grandfather as a child. “I think every character—the mother, the daughter, the sisters—is a fragment of myself.”
The Vilcek Foundation is proud to present Left-Handed Girl in its Hawai’i premiere at the 45th Annual Hawai’i International Film Festival (HIFF) as part of the 2025 New American Perspectives program, and to present a master class with Tsou following the festival screening.
Fortitude in Film
Tsou grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, where she earned her bachelor’s degree at Fu Jen Catholic University. She moved to the United States in 1998, to pursue her master’s degree in filmmaking at The New School in New York City. The filmmaker reflects that the experience of being an immigrant was often deeply isolating and challenged her to reach out of her shell.
“I don’t think everyone can move to a foreign country and start from scratch,” Tsou says. “You have to be brave, resilient, and curious about the things around you. My English was not good when I first came here, but through listening to people and observing others, I learned a great deal and formed new friendships, which helped me in my path to becoming a filmmaker.”
Collaborations in Cinema
One of the connections she made early on in her career was with producer and director Sean Baker, who she met at The New School. Left-Handed Girl was one of the first story ideas that she shared with Baker, who enthusiastically encouraged her to pursue it as a film project. Though Tsou wanted to start immediately, she knew the scope of the film as she envisioned it was much larger than what a starting independent filmmaker could afford, and Asian foreign-language films were not supported in the United States at that time.
In the interim, Tsou and Baker co-wrote and co-directed Take Out, which premiered at Slamdance Film Festival in 2004. Tsou was later named as an honoree for the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking (2009) for the realistic portrayals of individuals in her films. This award, in addition to the critical acclaim she and Baker received for Take Out, propelled the duo to partner on subsequent projects including Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017), as well as Starlet (2012) and Red Rocket (2021), both of which the Vilcek Foundation presented at HIFF.
A skillful editor, producer, and production designer, Tsou expertly conveys the humanity, strengths, and vulnerabilities of those living at the margins of society. Her films hold space for these characters’ hopes and dreams, and Tsou’s sensibility and sensitivity have been shaped by her own experiences adapting to a new country and balancing dual cultural identities.
The Importance of Place
In 2022, Tsou was able to obtain funding for Left-Handed Girl and traveled alone to Taiwan to hire local cast and crew members. The filmmaker spoke with individuals about their everyday experiences to supplement her own stories for the script. Tsou says that these conversations gave her different ideas and perspectives for the film, but one of the greatest assets to the development of Left-Handed Girl was returning to her home country after a period of separation.
“If you live in the same place your entire life, you begin to take it for granted,” Tsou says. “When I go back to Taiwan, I appreciate the things that make it unique much more because I no longer live there. It helps me to know which details to include to best capture its special culture. It was incredibly meaningful to make this film that shows my home country. I hope it will help to bring Taiwan to the global stage so that people can get to know and appreciate it as a country.”
At its heart, Left-Handed Girl is a story about women navigating silence, expectation, and self-discovery in modern Taiwan. Through handheld-camera images and unfiltered performances, Tsou invites audiences to witness ordinary lives with extraordinary grace.
“I want my daughter, and every girl, to know that being different is not something to hide, but something to honor,” Tsou says. “Cinema allows us to reclaim that difference and turn it into light.”
Vilcek Foundation
Vilcek Foundation
Share
