Left-Handed Girl, directed by Shih-Ching Tsou and co-written by filmmaker Sean Baker, has been selected to compete in the 2025 Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival. The Taipei-set family drama is one of seven features included in this year’s lineup for the parallel section, which focuses on first and second works from emerging directors.
Tsou, who previously collaborated with Baker on Take Out, Tangerine, Starlet, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, directs the film solo. Baker also co-edited the project while overseeing the awards run for his film Anora, which won Best Picture, Best Director, and three other Oscars earlier this year.
Left-Handed Girl follows a single mother and her two daughters as they navigate the complexities of life in the Taiwanese capital. Janel Tsai, an actress and model based in Taiwan, leads the cast. The film blends social realism with a focus on working-class life, continuing themes explored in Tsou and Baker’s past collaborations.
Critics’ Week, or La Semaine de la Critique, will run from May 14 to 22 in Cannes. Organized by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, the sidebar operates independently from the main festival and has previously introduced international audiences to the early work of Guillermo del Toro, Jacques Audiard, Julia Ducournau, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and Ken Loach.
This year’s Critics’ Week jury will include Spanish writer-director Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Moroccan critic and journalist Jihane Bougrine, cinematographer Josée Deshaies, Indonesian producer Yulia Evina Bhara, and British actor Daniel Kaluuya. The jury will select winners for the AMI Paris Grand Prix, the French Touch Prize of the Jury, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award, and the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for short films.
Joining Left-Handed Girl in the feature competition are six additional titles:
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Ciudad Sin Sueño (Sleepless City) by Spanish director Guillermo Galoe is set in a Madrid shantytown and follows two friends confronting an unexpected farewell.
Imago, directed by Deni Oumar Pitsaev, is an autobiographical documentary about the director’s attempt to construct a personal, futuristic home on a remote plot in a Georgian valley.
Kika, from Belgian director Alexe Poukine, centers on a social worker who discovers she is pregnant shortly after her partner’s death.
Nino by French filmmaker Pauline Loquès focuses on a young man who spends three days wandering the streets after misplacing his apartment keys.
Pee Chai Dai Ka (A Useful Ghost), from Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, features a mother who reappears in an unexpected form to care for her family.
Rietland (Reedland) by Dutch director Sven Bresser follows a reed cutter whose discovery of a body leads to deep personal unease.
In addition to the competition titles, four films will be presented as special screenings.
Opening the section is L’intérêt d’Adam (Adam’s Interest), a new work by Belgian director Laura Wandel. The film is set in a pediatric ward and centers on a mother, her son, and a hospital nurse. Anamaria Vartolomei and Léa Drucker lead the cast.
Baise-en-ville, directed by Martin Jauvat, follows a young man on foot as he searches for employment to pay for driving lessons. Jauvat also stars, with William Lebghil and Emmanuelle Bercot appearing in supporting roles.
Alice Douard’s Des preuves d’amour (Love Letters) tells the story of two women preparing for parenthood—one pregnant, the other completing an adoption. Ella Rumpf and Monia Chokri play the lead roles as the characters experience a series of complications and encounters.
The section will close with Planètes (Dandelion’s Odyssey), an animated film by Momoko Seto that follows a group of dandelions searching for a place to grow after surviving a nuclear explosion. It marks the first animated feature selected for Critics’ Week since I Lost My Body in 2019.
The 2025 Critics’ Week selection features productions from across Europe, Asia, and North America, including contributions from Taiwan, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Thailand, Singapore, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The main Cannes Film Festival runs May 13 to 24, while the Critics’ Week section begins one day later, operating under its own schedule and jury process.
