'Flow' makes Latvian cinema history after Oscar win for Best Animated Feature

Flow, a dialogue-free tale of animals surviving a disaster, took home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature on Sunday, capping a remarkable awards season for the Latvian film made on a minuscule budget.

The moving film follows a solitary black cat who, faced with a sudden flood, embarks on a reluctant journey with an unlikely group of companions, including a buoyant golden retriever and an unruffled capybara.

Independent Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis' Flow bested contenders like Inside Out 2, Memoir of a Snail, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and The Wild Robot to claim the prize—marking the first-ever Oscar for Latvia.

In his acceptance speech, Zilbalodis acknowledged the significance of the achievement, reflecting on the film’s central message: "We're all in the same boat, we must overcome our differences and find ways to work together — thank you."

For Zilbalodis, the story mirrors his own journey as an individualist who learned to collaborate in filmmaking.

"This is a story about a character who starts out being very independent, and then has to learn how to trust others and how to collaborate," Zilbalodis told AFP in an interview before the Oscars.

With a modest budget of $3.6 million, Flow has captured the hearts of audiences and critics alike, making history for Latvian cinema. The film’s Oscar nominations in both Best Animated Feature and Best International Film marked the first time any Latvian film had achieved such recognition.

Earlier this year, Flow won a Golden Globe, the highest award ever for a Latvian film, drawing thousands of fans to Riga’s museum where Zilbalodis displayed the statuette.

The film opens with the cat discovering that people have abandoned their homes as rising waters encroach on the meadows. Amid the apocalyptic backdrop, the cat forms an unlikely bond with a dog, a capybara, a secretary bird, and a lemur. Together, they board a sailboat and learn to cooperate as they face the surging waters.

Zilbalodis created the film using Blender, an open-source software, and carefully modeled the animals based on their real-life traits. Though no words are spoken in the film, the characters make their own sounds, recorded from real animals. However, the capybara, typically silent, required "extra assistance," Zilbalodis explained. A zookeeper had to tickle the capybara to produce a sound, which ultimately didn’t fit. The team then opted for a baby camel’s sound instead.

Flow is only the second animated film in Oscar history to be nominated in both the Animated and International Feature categories. The film has also shattered records in Latvia, with more than 300,000 people seeing it in theaters, making it the country’s most-viewed film, surpassing Avatar and Titanic.

Zilbalodis attributes much of the film’s success to the "innocence" of the animal characters. "This just shows that we can connect with these types of characters, because we have a lot more in common than we might think," he said. "We all share the same fears and instincts and needs."