Domee Shi chats about her new Pixar film 'Elio' and its Canadian connections

Three years after her first hit film, Turning Red, Canadian filmmaker Domee Shi is back with Elio, another Disney Pixar movie that’s sure to be out-of-this-world.

The Toronto native made her Hollywood debut in 2023 as the first Chinese Canadian woman to direct an animated feature film. Turning Red was unapologetically Toronto, repping the city’s vibrant culture on the big screen.

Now, Shi has co-directed Elio with Adam Molina and Madeline Sharafian, Pixar’s first movie with a Mexican-Dominican lead character. The intergalactic adventure follows Elio, a space and alien-obsessed kid who is beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide.

He’s mistakenly identified as Earth’s ambassador to the rest of the universe, so he’s tasked with forming new bonds with eccentric alien life forms, navigating a crisis of intergalactic proportions, and discovering who and where he’s truly meant to be.

Elio features the voices of Yonas Kibreab as Elio and Zoe Saldaña as Aunt Olga. You can catch it in theatres on June 20.

Daily Hive and blogTO sat down with Shi to chat about the message behind the film, how she relates to Elio as a former “loner, art kid” from Toronto, Canadian easter eggs in the movie, and who she thinks would make a great Canadian ambassador in the Communiverse.

What was the influence of Toronto on your work, even outside of Turning Red?

“I think you can see it naturally in my work, in that if I’m telling a story about kids growing up in a city, I just naturally gravitate towards populating the world with a diverse cast of characters, kind of similarly to how I grew up in Toronto.

Other than that, I always love to represent Canada at any moment or any opportunity I can get. With Elio, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do as much. But, if you watch the movie, at the very beginning, there is a scene where we see Voyager, the actual satellite that humanity sent out into space, kind of like Earth’s message in a bottle. It has collected all of these images and voices from countries all over the world. One voice that you hear at the beginning is like, ‘Hello, greetings from the government and the people of Canada.’ So, I was really happy that we were able to include that in there.”

What did you learn from making Turning Red that you applied to Elio?

“Making an animated movie is a pretty complex and long process. Our movies at Pixar take at least four years to make. Elio took five and some change, but I joined halfway through production. I took over with my directing partner, Madeline Sharafian, from the original director, Adrian Molina, who had to step away to start Coco 2. He entrusted Madeline and me to finish his project for him.

As we inherited it, we had our own kind of ideas, and we wanted to put our own stamp on it. We adjusted and changed the story, but kept the core and heart of it the same. What I learned on Turning Red was that it’s a marathon — it’s not a sprint. The creative process is just about iteration, trying, and exploring different paths. Even if those paths don’t lead anywhere, there could be something that you discover that you can take with you and bring back to the final version of the film.

[Elio] is a little younger than Mei from Turning Red, but he definitely has a similar conflict with his parental figure, Aunt Olga, that Mei has with her mom. They do clash in the movie. What I learned from Turning Red was that there are always two sides to an argument. When you’re writing and approaching an argument scene between a parent and a child, or even two characters, I think it’s important to put yourself in the shoes of each character and try to look at the argument from both sides. There is no bad guy or good guy. Both sides have their own reasons for why they think and feel the way that they do.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Domee Shi (@domeeshi)

So, that’s the approach that we took for Elio as well. He feels like he’s a burden to his aunt Olga at the beginning of the movie. He lost his parents at a young age, and his aunt had to adopt him, and he feels like he’s in her way. He prevented her from pursuing her dreams of being an astronaut. So, he’s just become so obsessed with getting abducted by aliens because he feels like he doesn’t belong on Earth.

[Olga] sees him going to the beach every day, waiting to be abducted by aliens. She sees that he’s pushing away other kids. All he cares about is making alien friends, and she’s just so worried about him. She never planned to be a parent, and she just wants what’s best for him. So, maybe this military summer camp will help give him some structure, maybe help introduce him to other kids his age. But for Elio, all he sees is that she wants to get rid of him and that he’s unwanted.”

Were there any moments in Elio that were inspired more directly by your life in Toronto?

“The original concept of the story, Adrian’s version of this story, which we kept, was like, ‘What if the world’s weirdest kid was mistaken for the leader of Earth and abducted by aliens?’ When Madeline and I joined the project, we added on top of that, ‘what if he always wanted to be abducted by aliens?’ What if that was his life mission?’

That came directly from our own experiences being the loner, art kid in our hometowns. In Turning Red, the main character, Mei, already has her core friend group. She’s found her people. I thought that with Elio, it could be an interesting story to tell about a kid who learns how to connect, who finds his people, just as I did when I first went to animation school.

Before that, I was one of the only kids in my high school who liked anime and cartoons, who got so obsessed with comics and TV shows. I didn’t really feel like I found my people until I went to Sheridan College. I looked around and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, everybody here knows all the references I’m talking about.’ They understand all of the movies, comics, and TV shows that I love — they’re speaking my language. I finally found my people.

Elio feels that way when he first gets abducted and arrives in the Communiverse. Before that, he was just so driven and obsessed with going to space. That obsession and passion were definitely inspired by my own passion for getting to animation school.”

What other Canadian place do you think would make for a good setting for a Pixar movie?

“Wouldn’t it be so funny if it were Calgary, and if, like Woody met his Canadian cowboy counterpart? Woody meets his Canadian cousin, who’s the Canadian doll version of the American Woody doll, and then they go to the stampede together.”

Which Canadian do you think would do well as a representative in the Communiverse?

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Nathan Fielder (@nathanfielder)

“There are so many to choose from, but only because I’ve been watching his show recently, I think Nathan Fielder would be a really funny Canadian to represent us. He’s kind of like an alien already, so I feel like he’d fit in with all of the other aliens. Like in his show The Rehearsal, he’d build a replica of Earth, and he would teach the aliens what Earthlings are through live roleplay.

There’s something kind of neat about his strangeness. You discover things through his strange, meta performances.”

Check out the interview below:

@dailyhivecanada Nathan Fielder mentioned 🗣️🤪 We chatted with Canadian director Domee Shi about her new film Elio and how Canada could fit into the Pixar universe. #elio #pixar #movie #canada ♬ original sound – dailyhivecanada

You might also like:
• Canadian airline named #1 in North America by prestigious ranking
• Canadians will get bigger ACWB payments from the feds in July
• You’ll now start seeing ads on WhatsApp