Of the the hundreds of millions of people watching the 2016 Academy Awards broadcast around the world, one of our very own Java Post Production animators, Tomás Ibar, had a special reason to cheer for an Oscar winner. Director/Animator Gabriel Osorio - whose film Bear Story took home the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film - was Tomás' instructor back in his home country of Chile.

The 11-minute film Bear Story was the first Chilean work to be nominated in the Best Animated Short category and it was the first-ever Oscar awarded to Chile. The film was inspired by the 1973 arrest of the director's grandfather, who was then forced to live in exile away from his family.

Tomás in his Java Post animation suite. In 2007, when Tomás was in his last year of university at Universidad Mayor in Santiago, Chile, Gabriel Osorio was his mo-cap (motion capture) instructor.

Director Gabriel Osorio Vargas (L) and producer Pato Escala Pierart, winners of Best Animated Short Film for Bear Story, pose in the press room during the 88th Annual Academy Awards at Loews Hollywood Hotel on February 28, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Osorio dedicated the win to his grandfather, the inspiration for the short film’s story.