Directed by the first Chinese female director at Pixar Animation Studios, Domee Shi, the animated short Bao won the 91st Academy Award (Oscars) for Best Animated Short, bringing a distinctive Chinese story to the world stage.

The short explores the life of a Chinese immigrant mother living in Toronto, Canada, with her inattentive husband, and who is struggling to cope with loneliness after her beloved son flies the nest. Remarkably, the moms deep, empty-nester angst turns to joy when a cute, leftover dumpling, or bao in Chinese, comes to life in true Pinocchio fashion, Xinhua reported.

Besides “Bao,” this year’s Oscars saw more Chinese elements, including the first-ever Chinese animated short “One Small Step,” which was nominated for the Oscars.

Produced by Taiko Studios in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province, “One Small Step” was inspired by Chinese female astronauts, Liu Yang and Wang Yaping, and is the first domestic animated short themed on independent females.

Some other animated shorts with Chinese characters also received attention at this year’s Oscars.

In 2017, the Chinese animated short “Beautiful Forest” stunned audiences. The seven-minute film with no dialogue featured moving Song Dynasty paintings of flowers and birds and soothing folk music. Dozens of famous traditional paintings, including one from an emperor in the Song Dynasty, were used in the film. It took the artist, Yang Chun, a graduate from Central Academy of Fine Arts in China, three years to finish the more than 10,000 meticulous strokes for the short film.

Many more China-originated filmmakers made a splash at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony. In addition to Domee Shi, husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi received the award for the Best Documentary Feature for “Free Solo,” making them the first married couple of Asian descent to be nominated together, Xinhua reported.