Left-handedness is often seen as being "wrong" – and also as a sign of "genius". Shih-Ching Tsou's drama, Left-Handed Girl, draws on the prejudice she faced as a leftie in Taiwan.

In the acclaimed new film Left-Handed Girl, a Taiwanese five-year-old named I-Jing is scolded by her grandfather when she uses her left hand for drawing. He tells her that it's "the devil's hand". Later, while her mother and adult sister work long hours, I-Jing steals from the market stalls near the family's tiny apartment, blaming her crimes on her "wicked" left hand. Many people, it seems, imagine that being left-handed is not quite right.

Around one in 10 people are thought to be naturally left-handed, but for centuries it was seen as inherently wrong, even evil: both the Bible and the Quran have negative passages about the left-hand side; the Latin word for left is "sinister"; and even when no longer associated with witchcraft, it was seen as something that needed "correction".

But over the last few decades in the West, left-handers have come into fashion: they are often said to have greater levels of creativity, and even genius, than their right-handed counterparts. There's an International Left-Handers Day, and there are lists of famous left-handers that include Sir Paul McCartney, Leonardo da Vinci, Prince William, former US President Barack Obama and Lady Gaga. Left-handers may still live in a right-handed world, but in some places, they (or rather we) can feel part of a talented minority.

The director and co-writer of Left-Handed Girl, Shih-Ching Tsou, is based in New York, but her film (her solo directing debut) is a comedic and heartfelt exploration not just of being left-handed, but of her native Taiwan. She's also the producer of some of Oscar winner Sean Baker's best-known films, including Tangerine, Red Rocket and The Florida Project; and Baker co-wrote and edited Left-Handed Girl.

She tells the BBC that the film, selected for the Cannes Film Festival and as Taiwan's 2026 entry in the best international film category at the Oscars, stems from her own childhood. Growing up in Taiwan, she was naturally left-handed, but as an infant was encouraged to use her right hand instead. Now, she says, she only uses her left hand to hold a knife or scissors.

"I was born left-handed and this film started from something my grandfather told me when I was in high school," she says. "He told me that the left hand is 'the devil's hand' and he asked me not to use it, although by that point, I wasn't left-handed anymore. When I met Sean at an editing class in 1999 in the US, I told him what my grandfather had said, and he thought it was a wonderful idea for a story because of this idea of a taboo. We even went to Taiwan in 2001 and shot some pictures and made a trailer, but at this point, we didn't have the resources to make a movie."

Tsou adds that I-Jing's left-handedness is a metaphor for the real point of her film: the idea of conformity in Taiwan, and the pressure, especially on women, to behave in a certain way in a patriarchal society.

"Throughout the years before I made this, I kept on telling Sean that I really want to tell a story about women. The way I grew up in Taiwan, there's a........

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