Domee Shi (/ˈdoʊmi/;[1] Chinese: 石之予; pinyin: Shí Zhīyǔ; born 8 September 1989)[2][3] is a Canadian animator, film director and screenwriter.

[4][5][6] Shi began working for Pixar in 2011 as a storyboard artist, contributing to multiple films, including Inside Out (2015), The Good Dinosaur (2015), and Toy Story 4 (2019).

[11] During her childhood, Shi watched many Studio Ghibli and Disney films, which exposed her to Asian cinema and animation.

[16] After graduating, Shi worked briefly as a cartooning instructor with an emphasis on character design and comic book creation.

On her internship at Pixar and eventually full-time job, Shi states, "I felt that my voice was valued early on in my career, which is rare.

[14] She also drew storyboards for the 2018 film Incredibles 2, where she worked on a sequence featuring the characters Jack-Jack and Edna Mode.

[21] On her career as a Chinese Canadian female director, Shi says that through her work as a filmmaker, she strives for the industry to reach the point where people are identified first as artists, and second by gender and ethnicity, stating that it gets old fast when she gets asked how it feels to be an Asian woman.

[29] Disney said Turning Red was the number one streaming title on Disney+, and in early April 2022, Pixar promoted Shi to vice president of creative, alongside Andrew Stanton, Peter Sohn and Dan Scanlon.

[30] With Turning Red's success, Shi has officially become the first woman to solo direct a film in Pixar's 36-year history.

The Variety article states that Shi would not be focusing on the trials and tribulations of mother-daughter relationships in immigrant families for her new film.

[32] In August 2024, Shi was officially confirmed to be directing the film alongside Madeline Sharafian, replacing original director Adrian Molina.

[10] In an interview with Now Magazine, Shi said that the animated films My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999) and Spirited Away (2001) were her influences when creating Bao.

"[37] For the film, Shi was also inspired to include a more diverse cast, with an article by Vanity Fair stating as such: "Shi was also vigilant about creating a diverse cast of human characters to surround Mei, including her Chinese Canadian family and multicultural Asian friends.