Biography
Madeline Sharafian is an American film director, screenwriter and storyboard artist. She was born on 1 February 1993 in Alameda, California, and trained at the California Institute of the Arts.
She began her career at Cartoon Network on the series We Bare Bears (2015) before joining Pixar Animation Studios. At Pixar she worked as a story artist on Coco (2017) and Turning Red (2022), and directed the short film Burrow (2020).
Sharafian made her feature directorial debut co-directing Elio (2025) with Domee Shi and Adrian Molina, on which she is also credited for the story. Both Burrow and Elio received Academy Award nominations.
