Los Angeles, Feb 27 (IANS): Disney's "Zootopia" -- which tells a story of a female rabbit who defies her haters to become a police officer, was named the Best Animated Feature film at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony here.

The ceremony -- hosted by American writer-comedian-voice actor Jimmy Kimmel-- is being held at the Dolby Theatre here on Sunday night.

Co-directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore, the film throws light on several social inequities like gender, racial and class bias. The award was picked by Howard, Moore and producer Clark Spencer.

While accepting the trophy, Howard looked back at the inception of the idea and said that "six years ago they took it up" with a hope to make "world a slightly better place".

Moore went on to say "We are so grateful to those who embraced this story of tolerance being more powerful than fear of the other".

Other nominees included -- "Kubo and the Two Strings" (Travis Knight and Arianne Sutner), "Moana" (John Musker, Ron Clements and Osnat Shurer), "My Life as a Zucchini" (Claude Barras and Max Karli) and "The Red Turtle" (Michael Dudok de Wit and Toshio Suzuki).

Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer also went home with the golden statuette as they won an Oscar for "Piper" -- which is a Pixar-produced film -- in the Best Animated Short category.