Flow (Latvian: Straume) is a 2024 animated fantasy adventure film directed by Gints Zilbalodis and written by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža. Featuring no dialogue, the film follows a cat, dog, capybara, and ring-tailed lemur trying to survive as the water level slowly rises in their forest. Production of the film started in 2019, and lasted five-and-a-half years. The animation was done using the free and open-source software Blender. The film is a Latvian, French and Belgian co-production. Flow debuted at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it received critical praise. It won numerous film and animation awards, including four awards at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and two at the Annie Awards, and was the first Latvian film to win at the Golden Globe Awards and to be nominated for the Academy Awards. The film holds the record for the most tickets sold in Latvian history, and its Golden Globe award was displayed at the Latvian National Museum of Art.

Plot

A dark grey 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 herd of deer stampede before it is caught by an onrushing flood. The cat and the dogs survive the flood and reach higher ground. A yellow Labrador Retriever follows the cat to an abandoned cabin decorated with wooden cat sculptures before they both notice the water level rising rapidly and the Labrador joins the other dogs on a boat. After the flood consumes the cabin, the cat climbs atop a giant cat statue until the waters reach the top of the statue's head. As the rising water completely submerges the statue, the cat jumps into an approaching sailboat with a capybara aboard. The next morning, as the boat sails through a partially submerged forest, the cat goes overboard while trying to avoid a white secretarybird, but it begins to sink underwater. A whale saves it from drowning, but a secretarybird immediately seizes it and carries it over the boat and releases it. Soon after, as the water level continues to rise, the capybara invites a ring-tailed lemur to hop aboard with its basket of trinkets. Later that day, the three animals land on shore and are joined by the Labrador. They encounter a flock of secretarybirds that show hostility toward 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 injured before the flock abandons it. With a diminished ability to fly, the secretarybird joins the crew. The crew arrives at a half-submerged city, set near the base of massive stone pillars. 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 crew sees 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 begrudgingly lets the capybara take control of the boat and rescue the dogs. As the boat sails through the stone pillars during a heavy storm, the secretarybird leaves, having regained its ability to fly. The cat once again falls overboard, but it swims ashore and climbs to the top of one of the pillars, where it meets up with the secretarybird in the center of a labyrinth. They are both temporarily weightless but the cat floats back to the ground while the secretarybird flies toward the light, and disappears. The cat tries to swim back to the boat, but it is too far. However, it finds a glass float and uses it to stay afloat. Suddenly, the water level rapidly drops as suddenly as it had earlier risen. 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 cat passes the boat's rope to the lemur and dogs, who work together to pull the boat toward them, but the dogs abandon the Labrador and its friends when a rabbit scampers by. The capybara and the cat manage to jump off before the boat and the tree fall into a ravine. Just as the crew celebrates, another deer stampede appears. The cat follows the stampede before noticing the whale beached in the forest. The cat comforts the whale before the capybara, Labrador, and lemur reunite with the cat and they look at their reflection in a puddle of water. In a post-credits sequence, a whale is seen surfacing on the ocean.

Production

In 2012, Zilbalodis produced Aqua, a short film about a cat overcoming its fear of the ocean. The premise of Aqua served as the basis for Flow. Zilbalodis used Maya to animate his previous works up to his 2019 film Away. That year, he switched to Blender because of the real-time renderer EEVEE. Production started in 2019, and it took Zilbalodis and his production team five-and-a-half years to complete Flow. The film features no dialogue and Zilbalodis stated that he was inspired by Jacques Tati, as well as the anime series Future Boy Conan. No storyboards were used and Zilbalodis instead placed the animals into the scene and "explore them with the camera". There are no deleted scenes from the film. Zilbalodis based the cat and the dog on his real-life pets, while the capybara, ring-tailed lemur, and secretarybird were studied from zoos. The whale was originally supposed to be based on a real whale, but it was redesigned to look more mythical. Additionally, the secretarybird was originally planned to be a seagull, but was replaced because the seagull was too small. Take Five and Sacrebleu Productions joined the production in 2022, and worked on character animation and sound. While Flow was still in development materials from the film were presented at the 2022 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. It was animated using Blender. Seven hours of music was composed by Zilbalodis and 50 minutes of it was used in the film. Sound designer Gurwal Coïc-Gallas used actual animal sounds for each character depicted in the film; the capybara was the only character to not use sounds from its real-world counterpart. As actual capybara sounds were too high-pitched and unpleasant, Coïc-Gallas used the sounds of a baby camel instead.

Music

The film's soundtrack was composed by Zilbalodis and Rihards Zaļupe, and was released on streaming media platforms by Milan Records on 1 November 2024.

Marketing

A board game based on the film was released in January 2025.

Release

Flow was selected to premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival on 22 May 2024. It was the first Latvian film shown in that section since The Shoe in 1998. It was shown 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 and 2024 Vancouver 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. Flow was screened in competition at the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award. Flow premiered at the Splendid Palace cinema in Riga, Latvia, on 28 August 2024 and was released nationwide the following day by Baltic Content Media. UFO Distribution released the film theatrically in France on 30 October 2024. It was given a limited release in the United States by Janus Films and Sideshow in New York and Los Angeles on 22 November 2024, before being released to 200 theatres on 6 December. The film was released in Belgium on 15 January 2025 by Le Parc Distribution. Madman Entertainment is set to release the film theatrically in Australia on 20 March 2025. It opened in 800 theatres in Mexico on 1 January 2025.

= Home media

= In the U.S., Flow will be released in 4K Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in 2025.

Reception and legacy

= Box office

= Since its release in Latvia, Flow has become the most-viewed theatrical film in Latvian history. Over 255,000 tickets were sold in Latvia, overtaking Blizzard of Souls to become the most attended film in the country's history. Flow also became Janus Films' highest-grossing film in the U.S. with US$4 million in ticket sales, surpassing the domestic haul of Drive My Car (2021). As of February 2025, Flow has grossed over US$20 million at the global box office.

= Critical response

= On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 123 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.5/10. 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." Christian Blauvelt, writing for IndieWire, gave Flow an A rating and praised it as "brimming with sentiment but not sentimentality" and compared its limited dialogue and non-anthropomorphized animals to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Due to the film's popularity in Latvia, a statue of the cat from Flow was installed in Riga. It was initially installed outside of the Freedom Monument, and is planned to be moved to the Town Hall Square in April 2025. Zilbalodis was honored as "Riga Citizen of the Year" in 2024. Due to the success of Flow, the Latvian film industry saw increased investment. Zilbalodis said that he had been approached to create a sequel to Flow, but chose not to make one, instead focusing on a different project with dialogue.

= Accolades

= Flow is the first Latvian production nominated for an Academy Award and first to win a Golden Globe. The film's Golden Globe award was featured at the Latvian National Museum of Art for one week.

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 Minimalist film

References

Works cited

= News

= "'Flow' becomes most viewed film ever in Latvian cinemas". Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 26 January 2025. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. Aguilar, Carlos (12 February 2025). "One Wordless, Animated Cat Movie. Two Oscar Nominations". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. Blauvelt, Christian; Perella, Vincent (5 January 2025). "The Budget for Animated Hit 'Flow' Was So Tight, the Film Has No Deleted Scenes". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 10 January 2025. Davis, Clayton (8 December 2024). "Anora Nabs Best Picture at L.A. Film Critics Awards, Marianne Jean-Baptiste Makes History With Lead Win (Full Winners List)". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 8 December 2024. Desowitz, Bill (18 November 2024). "'Flow' Director Gints Zilbalodis Doesn't Need Dialogue to Tell His Stories". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 10 January 2025. Ford, Rebecca (3 December 2024). "The Brutalist Tops NYFCC Awards". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on 4 December 2024. Shachat, Sarah (29 November 2024). "'Flow' Doesn't Have Dialogue — But Its Sound Design Speaks Volumes". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 10 January 2025.

= Web

= Abbatescianni, Davide (3 May 2024). "Gints Zilbalodis's sophomore feature, Flow, set to world-premiere in Cannes' Un Certain Regard". Cineuropa. Archived from the original on 3 May 2024. Siddi, Francesco (22 January 2025). "Making Flow – Interview with director Gints Zilbalodis". Blender Foundation. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. "2024 Archives". National Board of Review. 8 December 2024. Archived from the original on 4 December 2024. "Celebrating the best of European Cinema". European Film Academy. 8 December 2024. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. "Flow, as seen by Gints Zilbalodis". Cannes Film Festival. 22 May 2024. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025.

External links

Official website (Latvia) Official website (United States) Flow at IMDb Official Screenplay Archived January 5, 2025, at the Wayback Machine