EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has acquired most of the global rights to Shih-Ching Tsou’s Cannes‘ Critics Week movie Left-Handed Girl.
The movie, produced by and co-written by 4x Anora Oscar winner Sean Baker won the Gan Foundation Award as well as the Prix du Rail d’Or following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Mandarin and Taiwanese language movie follows a single mother and her two daughters who relocate to Taipei to open a night market stall, each of them navigating the challenges of adapting to their new environment while striving to maintain family unity. Janel Tsai stars as the mother, along with Nina Ye and Teng-Hui Huang as the children.
We heard back on the Croisette that Netflix was very excited about acquiring this movie.
“The original story comes from something my grandfather told me when I was young,” Tsou told Deadline’s Melanie Goodfellow in our Cannes Studio. “He told me the left is the devil’s hand, do not use it. At the time I was already ‘corrected’ as I was originally left-handed, so I didn’t really understand, but it stayed in my mind for a long, long time.”
“The story was in my heart for so long, and I really, really want to show how the world how beautiful my country is. This is like a love letter to Taiwan,” Tsou said.
Deadline Chief Film Critic Pete Hammond exclaimed, “Shih-Ching shows strong command of storytelling and shifting tones with high dramatics that could careen out of control but never do, instead keeping us on the edge of our seats. Baker’s tight editing really comes into play here and proves worthy of Douglas Sirk at his height. Ultimately what holds it all together are the strong performances all around.”
Coming out of the fest, Left-Handed Girl stands at 95% fresh with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Shih-Ching Tsou is a longtime collaborator of Baker’s who worked as a producer on his earlier films including Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket. The duo also co-directed a film called Take Out 21 years ago.
Both them of co-wrote the movie. Producers are Shih-Ching Tsou, Baker, Mike Goodridge, Jean Labadie and Alice Labadie. Production companies are Left-Handed Girl Film Production, LHG Films LTD, Good Chaos and Le Pacte.
Netflix has rights for the majority of the world except for the Baltics, Benelux, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, France, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Scandinavia, Poland and Taiwan.
