--- title: Oscar-Winning Animated Short 'Bear Story' Was a True Story description: It was inspired by the fallout from a coup in Chile in 1973 canonical: https://time.com/4241151/pinochet-history-oscars-bear-story/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-29T16:21:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:27:51.039Z article:section: History og:title: The Serious History Behind the Oscar-Winning Animated Short 'Bear Story' og:description: It was inspired by the fallout from a coup in Chile in 1973 og:url: https://time.com/4241151/pinochet-history-oscars-bear-story/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Serious History Behind the Oscar-Winning Animated Short 'Bear Story' twitter:description: It was inspired by the fallout from a coup in Chile in 1973 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Serious History Behind Oscar-Winning Animated Short _Bear Story_  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 29, 2016 4:21 PM CUT  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 29, 2016 4:21 PM CUT The Oscar-winner for Best Animated Short looks, at first, like a cute and cuddly tale of a father bear struggling to get back to his family. But _Bear Story_ is an allegory for something far more serious. As director Gabriel Osorio alluded to in his acceptance speech Sunday, the film’s story was [inspired](http://www.punkrobot.cl/projects/historia-de-un-oso/ "undefined") by true events: the 1973 arrest of his grandfather, who was held for two years, then sent out of the country and forced to live apart from the rest of the family in Chile. It was in 1973 that Chile’s Marxist president Salvador Allende—whose rule had been [opposed](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-10-01/page/45/ "undefined") by the U.S.—died during a coup by a military junta, which over the course of a couple of violent days brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power and established tightly controlled military rule in the nation. Dozens of leftist political figures were ordered to surrender themselves and, according to [reports](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-09-24/page/37/ "undefined") from the time, a total of about 3,000 people were imprisoned. After about half a year under Pinochet, Chile had [become](http://time.com/vault/issue/1974-04-22/page/50/ "undefined") a place where “people who talk too much or ask too many questions simply disappear.” As TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1974-09-23/page/46/ "undefined") in late 1974, on the one-year anniversary of Pinochet’s coming to power, the option of exile was actually seen at the time as a loosening of the reins: --- > “” --- Pinochet, who held power for 17 years and was arrested for war crimes in 1998, died in 2006. **_Read TIME’s full 1973 cover story about Pinochet’s coup, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Bloody End of a Marxist Dream](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-09-24/page/37/ "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4241151/pinochet-history-oscars-bear-story/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4241151/pinochet-history-oscars-bear-story/"},"headline":"The Serious History Behind Oscar-Winning Animated Short Bear Story","datePublished":"2016-02-29T16:21:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:27:51.039Z","description":"It was inspired by the fallout from a coup in Chile in 1973","url":"https://time.com/4241151/pinochet-history-oscars-bear-story/","keywords":["movies","Oscars"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4241151/pinochet-history-oscars-bear-story/","name":"The Serious History Behind Oscar-Winning Animated Short Bear Story"}}]}] ```