How the poetic Flow upset the Oscars to become an animation sensation

A poetic, dialogue-free tale about a plucky feline, Flow is the ultimate David versus Goliath story – not just in its narrative, as the unnamed cat joins forces with other animals to survive a flood, but in its wider context. Already, in January, the film claimed the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, hinting that it had a chance to land an Oscar. But surely, this miniature masterpiece wouldn’t have the power to outmuscle Hollywood big-hitters from the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks?

Think again. At the Academy Awards, Flow overcame such animated behemoths as Pixar’s Inside Out 2 (the biggest grossing movie of 2024, lest we forget) and DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, directed by Lilo & Stitch creator Chris Sanders. It was shocking, given these rival films came equipped with vast marketing budgets and armies of publicists working to promote them across the awards season.

When Zilbalodis took to the podium to accept his Oscar, after thanking his parents and – charmingly – his "cats and dogs", he added: "I’m really moved by the warm reception our film has had…and I hope that it will open doors to independent animation filmmakers around the world." Words that were greeted with warm applause from Hollywood’s finest and hopefully heeded across the globe.

It was a speech that surely chimed with fellow nominees Adam Elliot, the Australian animator behind stop-motion tale Memoir of a Snail, and Britain’s beloved Nick Park, whose latest Wallace & Gromit adventure, Vengeance Most Fowl, marked his seventh Academy Award nomination (he’s already a four-time winner). It’s almost unheard of for an indie animation to unseat the big boys (this century, nearly all the Best Animated Feature winners have come from either Pixar or other Hollywood studios).

In some ways, Hollywood should’ve seen Flow’s success coming. The film was selected for its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Playing in the sidebar, Un Certain Regard, it was one of the most-talked about movies on the Croisette. "In Cannes, it’s super rare that there’s an animation," Zilbalodis reflects. "It was a long shot, that we would be selected. It’s so unique. And in these festivals, you have a lot of bleak and serious and dark films."

Flow has its bleak moments, admittedly, as the film’s black cat protagonist picks its way through a landscape that had been swallowed up by a flood of Biblical proportions. "We’ve never really seen this story from an animal’s point of view," says Zilbalodis. "And I think it becomes a lot more emotional…and can be a lot more powerful to see these animals going through all this. And we don’t see any humans in the film. From the beginning I knew that there wouldn’t be any humans because I knew that I didn’t want any dialogue."

Along the way, the cat is joined by dogs, lemurs, cranes, a whale and a capybara, as these creatures find that teamwork is the best – and only – way to survive. It’s a theme that resonated with Zilbalodis. "I used to work alone," he explains. "On my previous films, I did everything myself, and this was my first experience working [with others]. So it was quite deliberate to tell this personal story. I wrote the story before I had actually worked with the team, so I was really anticipating a lot of conflict and drama. But the actual process was a lot smoother than we see in the film."

In classic David versus Goliath style, the self-taught Zilbalodis grew up away from the film industry. His inspiration, largely, was his mother and father. "My parents come from an artistic background. My mum’s a painter, and my dad is a sculptor. My mum would teach me to paint. So there was a lot of support. I would imagine some other people’s parents might be worried about my taking this approach. But luckily, I was very supported in that way."

He made his first short, Rush, in 2010, the first of several baby-steps into the industry. As subsequent shorts accumulated prizes and festival berths, it allowed him to travel and meet producers, ultimately leading to his 2019 debut feature Away, a dialogue-free animation of a boy and a bird trying to get home from a strange island. With no animation school in Latvia back then, he calls Away his "unofficial film school" as he wrote, directed, edited, produced and scored the film. "I wanted to do everything myself, to go through all these processes. Now working with a team, I can understand everything. I’m not an expert in anything, but I can understand the basics."

Zilbalodis says that on Flow they used "quite a lot of people", but the numbers pale next to the hundreds credited for Inside Out 2 and other Hollywood animation projects. "Some of them were for just there for a few days. So I think usually in our studio in Latvia, we had about five people at a time, but they kept changing. And we had about, I think, 18 animators in France and Belgium who did the character animation. But that was also a pretty short production." Well, assuming you consider five years a short period of time – eighteen months longer than it took to make Away.

With everything on Flow animated by hand rather than using computers, one of the most touching elements of the film is just how beautifully observed the animal behaviour is – particularly with the film’s feline lead. "We looked at a lot of cat videos on YouTube and recorded our own pets and for pretty much every scene, we found some reference," Zilbalodis notes. "Even for some small details, where the cat is just looking around, we would look for some inspiration from real cats."

Unsurprisingly, Zilbalodis grew up with these creatures. "I knew cats and dogs quite well. I was just remembering my pets but I think sometimes in the film, the cat doesn’t behave very nicely. It can be quite be a bastard to other animals! And I think we forgive it, because it’s a cat. I think if it would be people in the story, we would not like these characters, but because the cat is so cute, and we remember our own pets behaving this way, being very arrogant, it becomes funnier."

The film has been characterised as a Noah’s Ark story – though Zilbalodis claims this was not deliberate. Rather, he started with the cat and its innate fear of water. "I wanted to express this fear in the biggest way possible." And yet, despite the absence of humans, mankind’s destructive presence can be felt. "I think the humans have been there. Maybe they were aware of this catastrophe, or they might have left these animals to fend for themselves, and I would imagine that would happen in real life as well. Humans will do fine, probably, or at least most people will. But these creatures... [have] to face the problems that the humans have left them."

Needless to say, things have gone crazy back in Zilbalodis's homeland since Flow’s Academy Awards triumph. The first Latvian film ever to be nominated for an Oscar – let alone win one – Flow is easily the most successful movie of all time back in Latvia. The Latvian National Museum of Art now houses the film’s Golden Globe, and Zilbalodis – who grew up in Riga, the capital city – has been named ‘Riga Citizen of the Year’. Better yet, a statue of the cat itself has been erected in the city, echoing the curious cat statues that adorn the mysterious, timeless landscape seen in the film.

Zilbalodis, of course, has no desire to become cinema’s equivalent of a balmy cat lover. "I had some people approach me to make more films about cats, but I don’t want to be typecast, making films just about cats," he says. "So my next film will probably not have any cats. I’ll do something different." He’s currently writing. Again, it’ll be animated, but for the first time, he promises there will be dialogue. Of course, the most burning question is this: does he plan to become a cat owner now? He laughs. "I should get a cat after this promotional tour!"

Flow is released in UK cinemas on Friday 21st March 2025.

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