DIRECTORS

Shih-Ching Tsou is a Taiwanese-American filmmaker based in New York City. She began her career co-directing the acclaimed feature Take Out with Sean Baker, a raw and intimate portrait of an undocumented delivery worker that earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination and was later restored by the Criterion Collection. Over the next decade, she became a key creative force behind Baker’s celebrated body of work, EP on Starlet, then produced Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket—films that defined a new wave of independent American cinema.

In 2025, Tsou made her solo directorial debut with Left-Handed Girl, which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week and won both the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution and the Audience Prize. A deeply personal coming-of-age drama set in the vibrant chaos of a Taipei night market, the film explores intergenerational conflict, unspoken family trauma, and the quiet strength of women as they navigate tradition and survival. Left-Handed Girl was selected as Taiwan’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2026 Academy Awards.

Tsou’s work is rooted in lived experience, cultural specificity, and emotional nuance. Her filmmaking blends vérité realism with lyrical imagery, and centers the voices of those often left on the margins. With Left-Handed Girl, she has firmly stepped into the spotlight as a singular voice in global cinema.