Madeline Sharafian

Madeline Sharafian (born February 1, 1993) is an American film director, screenwriter, and storyboard artist. She is best known for her work at Pixar, including directing the short film Burrow (2020) and the upcoming feature film Elio (2025).

Early life

Sharafian was born in Alameda, California, and is of Armenian descent. By 2013, she was enrolled in CalArts.

Career

In 2013, Sharafian wrote and directed the short film Omelette. In 2014, she served as a storyboard artist, writer, and character designer on the Cartoon Network series We Bare Bears. In 2017, she storyboarded sequences for Coco and Dante's Lunch. In 2020, she wrote and directed a 2D animated Pixar short film titled Burrow, originally slated to play in theaters before the feature film Soul. In October 2020, it was announced the short would instead premiere on Disney+. In 2022, she served as a storyboard artist for Turning Red. In August 2024, she was announced to be making her feature directorial debut with Elio, alongside Domee Shi, replacing original director Adrian Molina.

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title	Director	Story artist	Notes/Ref(s)
2017	Coco	Template:No	Template:Yes
2022	Turning Red	Template:No	Template:Yes
2025	Elio	Template:Yes	Template:No	Post-production

Short films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Other	Notes/Ref(s)
2013	Omelette	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Producer
2017	Weekends	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Animator Cel painter
	Dante's Lunch	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Story artist
2018	Purl	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Story trust
2020	Burrow	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Animator
2021	Twenty Something	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Story trust

Television

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Story artist	Other	Notes/Ref(s)
2014–17	We Bare Bears	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Character designer
2016	Goodnight, Ice Bear	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Editor

Accolades

Template:Sronly

Award	Date	Category	Nominated work	Result	Ref(s)
Academy Awards	April 25, 2021	Best Animated Short	Burrow	Template:Nom
Annie Awards	February 6, 2016	Outstanding Achievement for Storyboarding in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production	We Bare Bears	Template:Nom
	February 3, 2018	Outstanding Achievement for Storyboarding in a Feature Production	Coco	Template:Nom
Hollywood Critics Association	March 5, 2021	Best Short Film	Burrow	Template:Nom

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• Template:Rotten Tomatoes