The teenage Shih-Ching Tsou was at home in Taipei cooking a meal one day when she picked up a knife with her left hand. \u201cMy grandfather told me the left hand is the devil\u2019s hand. He said: \u2018You should not use that.\u2019\u201d Up until then, the Taiwanese-American film-maker hadn\u2019t even realised she was left-handed. \u201cI was already \u2018corrected\u2019, probably in kindergarten, by the teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n
That conversation \u2013 and the lingering sense of shame \u2013 stayed with her, Tsou says. She spoke to her mother about it. \u201cShe told me she was left-handed too and got corrected\u201d \u2013 forced to use her right hand \u2013 \u201cbecause at the time, they said you had to do the same as other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I was very rebellious\u2019 \u2026 Shih-Ching Tsou. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole\/Getty Images for BFI<\/p>\n
Decades later, she has turned that childhood incident into a scene in her new film, Left-Handed Girl, which follows a sweet-natured Taiwanese five-year-old, I-Jing (Nina Ye), grappling with what she believes to be her own \u201cdevil\u2019s hand\u201d. Her mother, Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai), a noodle stall owner, is struggling with money problems while I-Jing\u2019s rebellious older sister, I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma), is dealing with the fallout from an affair with her married boss. I-Jing starts to shoplift, her left hand taking on a sinful life of its own.<\/p>\n
Tsou found Nina, who started acting in commercials when she was three, through a casting director friend. \u201cWhen I cast her, she was six, so she was really experienced,\u201d says the director over a video call from the Zurich film festival. \u201cShe knows exactly what to do in front of the camera.\u201d She was surprised to find out that her young star had also been left-handed but had been corrected by her grandmother. \u201cWe had to retrain her to use her left hand. When I heard, I was like, \u2018Oh, my God, this still exists.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Shot entirely on iPhones, Left-Handed Girl is a raw and empathic story about family secrets, resilience and the struggles of being an Asian woman in a society that still prizes sons over daughters. Tsou recounts how she once went back to Taiwan for the annual Qingming festival, where families clean their ancestors\u2019 graves. \u201cMy mother was talking only about my brother, because she thinks I\u2019m already married off, so I\u2019m not part of the family any more. That\u2019s very traditional thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tsou grew up in Taipei and moved to New York to do a master\u2019s. \u201cI actually moved out of my parents\u2019 home when I was 14 so I was used to being alone,\u201d she says, explaining how she left after getting into fights with her \u201cvery strict\u201d dad. \u201cI was very rebellious. I would talk back.\u201d Emigrating to the US years later, she was glad to get away from what she calls the \u201climitations\u201d of Taiwanese society. \u201cI have darker skin,\u201d she says, gesturing to her arm. \u201cBut they expect girls to have pale skin to be considered pretty.\u201d In the summer, she would avoid wearing short sleeves. \u201cBecause my mum would say, \u2018You don\u2019t want to get tanned.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It was at the New School that she met Sean Baker<\/a>, the Oscar-winning Anora director, who was then a fellow student. She brought up her experience of being left-handed in Taiwan. \u201cThat was actually the very first idea I wanted to make into a film.\u201d The pair bonded over their love of Dogme 95 films and Korean cinema.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n