Flow (Latvian: Straume) is a 2024 animated fantasy adventure film directed by Gints Zilbalodis and written by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža. The film is notable for containing no dialogue. Upon premiering at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, the film received critical acclaim and won numerous film and animation awards, including the Best Animated Film awards at the European Film Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and the National Board of Review Awards. The film was selected as the Latvian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

Plot

A black cat wanders through a forest when a pack of dogs arrive by the river to catch fish. When two of the dogs fight over a fish, the cat takes the fish and is immediately chased by the dogs. The cat loses the dogs, but notices a deer stampede before it is caught by a tsunami. The cat and the dogs manage to survive the flood by reaching higher ground. A yellow Labrador Retriever follows the cat to an abandoned house decorated with wooden cat sculptures before they both notice the water level rising rapidly and the Labrador joins the other dogs on a boat. With the house consumed by the flood, the cat climbs atop a giant cat statue until the waters reach the top of the statue's head. Before the statue is completely submerged, the cat jumps into an approaching sailboat with a capybara aboard. The next morning, as the boat sails across a forest filled with stone pillars, the cat goes overboard while trying to avoid a white secretarybird, but it begins to sink underwater. A whale saves it from drowning, but the secretarybird grabs the cat before it frees itself and lands back on the boat. As the water level continues to rise, the capybara invites a ring-tailed lemur to hop aboard with its basket of junk. Later that day, the three animals land on shore and are joined by the Labrador. They encounter a flock of secretarybirds that show hostility towards them, causing the cat to run away before the flock corners it. The secretarybird that first encountered the cat pleads with the leader to spare its life, only to lose in a duel and have its wing broken before the flock abandons it. Having lost its ability to fly, the secretarybird joins the other animals aboard the boat. The next day, the animals arrive at a half-submerged city and sail towards a giant rock formation. The animals begin to argue with each other after the secretarybird kicks the lemur's glass ball overboard until the boat is stopped by a tree. The boat is freed after the whale breaches near them. After learning from the capybara, the cat improves its ability to swim to catch fish on its own and feed the rest of the crew. Later, the animals see the other dogs stranded in a bell tower. The secretarybird initially refuses to head for the dogs, but upon the cat giving its approval, the secretarybird lets the capybara take control of the boat and rescue the dogs. As the boat sails through the formation during a heavy storm, the cat once again falls overboard, but it swims ashore and climbs to the top of one of the formations, where it meets up with the secretarybird - having regained its ability to fly. They are both suddenly lifted up in the air by a bright light above them, but the cat is released back on the ground while the secretarybird flies towards the disappearing light. The cat tries to swim back to the boat, but it is too far; however, the cat manages to find the glass ball and jump on it to stay afloat. Suddenly, the water level rapidly drops as a fault line drains the ocean. After much time roaming through the forest, the cat is reunited with the lemur and is led to the boat hanging on a tree. The dogs jump off the boat, but just as the capybara is about to exit, the tree begins to give in to the weight of the boat. The lemur and the dogs work together to pull the boat towards them, but the dogs abandon the Labrador when a rabbit passes by them. They manage to save the capybara before the boat and the tree fall off the cliff. Just as the animals celebrate, another deer stampede appears. The cat follows the trail and sees the whale dying from being beached in the forest. The capybara, Labrador, and lemur reunite with the cat before they look at their reflection on a puddle of water. In a post-credits sequence, the whale is seen surfacing on the ocean.

Production

In 2022, while Flow was still in development, materials from the film were presented at that year's Cartoon Movie forum in Bordeaux. The film was produced with financial support from the National Film Centre of Latvia, the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, ARTE France, Eurimages, RTBF, and the Belgian Tax Shelter. Animation for the film was completed in France and Belgium. Flow is notable for being completely rendered on the open-source software Blender. Sound designer Gurwal Coïc-Gallas used actual animal sounds for each character depicted in the film; the only exception was the capybara. As actual capybara sounds were too high-pitched and unpleasant, Coïc-Gallas used the sounds of a baby camel instead.

Release

Flow was selected to premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival on 22 May 2024. The film screened at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it was awarded the Jury Award, the Audience Award, and the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution in the Feature Film category. Flow was submitted to the 2024 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it received the Grand Prize for Feature Animation. The film was also screened at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was invited to 'Open Cinema' at the 29th Busan International Film Festival and was screened at the outdoor theater in October 2024. UFO Distribution released the film theatrically in France on 30 October 2024. Janus Films and Sideshow distributed the film in the United States through a limited release in New York and Los Angeles on 22 November 2024, followed by a wider national release on 6 December 2024. Since the film's release in Latvia on 28 August 2024, it has sold over 100,000 tickets, becoming one of the most popular domestic films of the country. Madman Entertainment will release the film theatrically in Australia on 20 March 2025.

Reception

= Critical response

= On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 96 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Thanks to its innovative animation and mature themes, going with this Flow proves irresistible." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Writing for The New York Times, Calum Marsh noted that "the animals act like real animals, not like cartoons or humans, and that restraint gives their adventure an authenticity that, in moments of both delight and peril, makes the emotion that much more powerful." Jake Coyle of the Associated Press called Flow the best animated film of 2024, writing that the "computer generated animation adds to its dreamy, curiously real surrealism."

= Accolades

=

See also

List of submissions to the 97th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film List of Latvian submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

References

External links

Official website (Latvia) Official website (United States) Flow at IMDb