After premiering at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and winning three awards at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, ‘Flow’ has been selected by the Latvian Selection Committee, a commission of film industry experts established by the National Film Center of Latvia, as Latvia’s entry in the 2025 Oscar race for the Best International Feature Film category
The film is also set to screen at the upcoming 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
The second feature film from director Gintz Zilbalodis tells the story of a cat trying to survive in a new environment with other animals after its home got destroyed in a great flood. The film is presented without dialogue.
A wondrous journey, through realms natural and mystical, Flow follows a courageous cat after his home is devastated by a great flood. Teaming up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land, they must rely on trust, courage, and wits to survive the perils of a newly aquatic planet. From the boundless imagination of the award-winning Gints Zilbalodis (Away) comes a thrilling animated spectacle as well as a profound meditation on the fragility of the environment and the spirit of friendship and community. Steeped in the soaring possibilities of visual storytelling, Flow is a feast for the senses and a treasure for the heart.
In an interview with Fred Film Radio, Zilbalodis talked about his approach to the sound of the film, “The music is very important in this film. I avoided using a theme score, opting instead to edit the film with music already in place, We recorded with a full orchestra, which was a great emotion for me. Some scenes are without music, where sound design plays a crucial role in immersing the audience into the world of ‘Flow.”
The film garnered critical acclaim after its festival run, with legendary animation director Guillermo Del Toro even praised the film on a tweet, writing, “If I could wish for the future of animation, these images would be its magnificent, breathtaking start.”.
Christian Blauvelt in an IndieWire review gave the film an ‘A’ score, writing, “It’s not just a supreme example of a movie kids will love that adults will too. With its wordlessness, this is a film that could play in any country of the world, its capacity to reach literally everyone limitless.”
David Rooney in a Hollywood Reporter review also praised the film, writing, “This is a wonderful film for children, its example of the give and take of friendship and the importance of mutual trust embedded organically in the narrative with clarity but without over-emphasis.”