Bao

Bao (2018) is the Pixar short you can watch online on iFILM. Eight wordless minutes, directed by Domee Shi. An aging Chinese-Canadian mother is folding dumplings when one of them comes to life as a giggling, round-cheeked little boy.

She raises the dumpling as her own — feeding him, taking him to market, shielding him from every bump in the world. But he grows up, wants a life of his own, and one day prepares to leave, at which point the story turns somewhere a children's tale rarely goes. It's a parable about empty-nest grief and the kind of love that smothers when it can't let go. Shi became the first woman to solo-direct a Pixar short, and the film took home an Oscar. Warm, awkward and quietly aching — stream Bao (2018) online on iFILM.