Latvia Earns First Oscar Nominations With Animated Flick ‘Flow’

Zac Ntim

23 January 2025 at 9:10 am·2-min read

Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow, the animated film that had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, has earned Latvia its first Academy Award nominations.

The film landed Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature noms this morning from the American Academy. Latvia had made 15 Oscar submissions prior to Flow but had never received a nomination.

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Zilbalodis (Away) co-wrote and directed the film, which 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.

After its Cannes premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, Flow won four prizes at France’s Annecy Fest in June: the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, the Audience Award, the Jury Award, and a special prize for original music. Zilbalodis composed the score with Rihards Zalupe.

Matiss Kaza co-wrote the script with Zilbalodis. The pair also produced alongside Ron Dyens and Gregory Zalcman. Flow went on to screen at Toronto and Sideshow and Janus Films released the film in U.S. cinemas in November 2024.

Zilbalodis’ film has picked up a gang of fans along the way, including prominent names in the animation space like Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro.

“If I could wish for the future of animation, these images would be its magnificent, breathtaking start,” Del Toro said in an X post featuring a clip from Flow.

If I could wish for the future of animation, these images would be its magnificent, breathtaking start. https://t.co/mI1rp2l9Ar
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) May 27, 2024

While discussing his approach to animation in the film, Zilbalodis recently told Deadline’s Ryan Fleming that he and his team were aiming to find a balance between real life and fiction.

“We described our approach as being naturalism rather than realism, where the difference is that we study real life but we don’t copy, we interpret it,” he said.

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