Speaking about her story, Liu says it is titled The Dumpling, a traditional Chinese food symbolizing family reunion during Spring Festival, and adds that the 18-minute movie is about an estranged mother and daughter. But besides the dumplings, the story also features other Chinese elements.

The film was shot in seven days and features actresses Wang Luodan, Liu Bei and Zong Ping.

Giving details of how she picked the story for the film, she says: "When I was invited to take part in the coproduction, I looked for inspiration from what my friends and I have experienced."

Liu, 31, first found fame with her Student Academy Award-winning Door God. And she grew more popular with Someone to Talk to, a critically acclaimed feature based on her father Liu Zhenyun's Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning novel One Sentence Worth Ten Thousand.

In the Russian story Catfishing, a woman in a rural area falls in love with a live broadcaster she meets on the internet.

And the Brazilian short, Back, tells of a woman's journey to return to her hometown.

The South African story, The Measure of a Woman, centers on a female athlete's fight against gender discrimination, while the Indian story, Taken for Granted, which features actress Sakshi Tanwar from Dangal, the highest-grossing Indian movie in China, is a shorter version of the hit film.

Half the Sky will be released in China in this second half of this year, and will be distributed globally too.