Disney-Pixar has released the first look at Bao, Pixar’s newest short film screening ahead of Incredibles 2 in June.
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Bao tells the story of “a Chinese-Canadian woman suffering from the depression of an empty nest, who gets a second shot at motherhood when one of her handmade dumplings comes alive,” per an exclusive first look cooked up by Entertainment Weekly.
“Often times it felt like my mom would treat me like a precious little dumpling, wanting to make sure I was safe, that I didn’t go out late, all that stuff,” said Pixar storyboard artist and first-time director Domee Shi.
Shi was inspired to tell a story inspired by her upbringing as the only child to Chinese immigrants. “I just wanted to create this magical, modern-day fairy tale, kind of like a Chinese Gingerbread Man story,” Shi said.
“The word ‘bao’ actually means two things in Chinese,” Shi explained. “Said one way, it means steamed bun. Said another, it means something precious. A treasure.”
The seven-and-a-half-minute short marks the first time in Pixar’s 32-year history a short has been directed by a woman.
Shi, who served as storyboard artist on Pixar’s Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur, found her Pixar colleagues eager to work on the little short film she was baking.
Its familial and maternal themes resonated with Pixar artists, especially employees with Asian and immigrant parents, who reached out to Shi and producer Becky Neiman-Cobb and offered to help mold Bao‘s anthropomorphized ball of dough.
Neiman-Cobb, who worked as an additional production artist on Ratatouille, said she was warned by crew from that film about the difficulty in recreating food in animation.
“You know Pixar and you know the special effects we can pull off here: explosions and water and splashes and fire and fireworks,” Neiman-Cobb said.
“One of the biggest challenges, and what brought our effects department to their knees, was Dumpling’s pork filling. That was hard. We learned there’s a very fine line between looking delicious and appetizing and looking wrong or gross. Making our food look delicious was a big triumph.”
Bao debuts exclusively in theaters preceding showings of Incredibles 2.
Disney-Pixar’s super sequel, starring Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Sophia Bush, Jonathan Banks and Samuel L. Jackson, opens June 15.
