Domee Shi, the Oscar-winning Canadian animator and director behind Bao and Turning Red, is back with a new Disney-Pixar movie, Elio.

It's about an 11-year-old lovable oddball named Elio who's totally obsessed with space. When his dream of getting abducted by aliens comes true, he suddenly finds himself with a lot of responsibility.

In an interview with Q guest host Talia Schlanger, Shi says the theme of alien abduction was the perfect entry point to explore the loneliness that many kids face growing up. The story was loosely inspired by co-director Adrian Molina's childhood experience of being raised on a military base, but Shi and co-director Madeline Sharafian also drew on their own experiences of being artsy kids who struggled to find their place in the world.

"A lot of us have been that weird lonely kid in our hometowns who felt like no one really wanted them or understood them, and they were dreaming to find a place where they could belong," Shi says. "For me, that was animation school…. For Elio, that's that moment when he gets abducted by aliens."

The movie opens with a young Elio visiting a space museum with his aunt Olga, whom he starts living with after the death of his parents. Shi says Elio's passionate interest in space is what helps him heal from his grief and isolation.

"I think we knew from the beginning that that was going to be his quirk and that was going to be his obsession, but it took a while to get under the hood and understand why he wanted to get abducted by aliens so badly," she says. "What was he trying to escape from? That required a lot of looking internally within ourselves, but also we talked to child psychologists [and] we did some research on how children deal with grief, with the scenario of losing both your parents."

After getting abducted by aliens, Elio finds an escape from his loneliness by going to outer space where he believes he'll finally find a place where he belongs.

"He does want to belong somewhere, but deep down, he is kind of running away from this deep, dark fear of feeling [that] there might be something wrong with him," she says.

For each of her films, Shi says she's had to dig up personal experiences from her past to craft a relatable story.

"It just makes our films so much richer and I think that's the reason why Pixar films resonate with audiences all over the world," she says. "I think in order to make a film that resonates, you have to be brave. Like Elio does, you have to open yourself up, you have to be vulnerable and show a part of yourself that maybe you're a little bit embarrassed to show the world."

Interview with Domee Shi produced by Sarah Melton.