Flow (2024 film) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Flow
Latvian theatrical release poster
Directed by	Gints Zilbalodis
Produced by	Matīss Kaža Gints Zilbalodis Ron Dyens Gregory Zalcman
Written by	Gints Zilbalodis Matīss Kaža
Music by	Gints Zilbalodis Rihards Zaļupe
Cinematography	Gints Zilbalodis
Editing by	Gints Zilbalodis
Studio	Dream Well Studio Sacrebleu Productions [fr] Take Five [fr]
Distributed by	Baltic Content Media (Latvia) UFO Distribution (France) Le Parc Distribution (Belgium)
Release date(s)	22 May 2024 (2024-05-22) (Cannes) 29 August 2024 (2024-08-29) (Latvia) 30 October 2024 (2024-10-30) (France) 15 January 2025 (2025-01-15) (Belgium)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	Latvia France Belgium
Budget	€3.5 million
Money made	US$20 million

Flow (which is Straume in Latvian) is an amazing animated fantasy adventure film from 2024. It was directed by Gints Zilbalodis, who also helped write the story with Matīss Kaža. What's really cool about this movie is that it has no talking at all!

The film follows a brave cat, a friendly dog, a chill capybara, a tall secretarybird, and a clever ring-tailed lemur. They live in a world where humans seem to be gone. Their big challenge is to survive as the water level keeps rising higher and higher around them.

Making Flow took about five and a half years, starting in 2019. The animators used a special free computer program called Blender. This movie was a big deal for Latvia, as it was co-produced with France and Belgium.

Flow first showed at the famous 2024 Cannes Film Festival and everyone loved it. It won many awards, including four at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. It was even the first Latvian film to win a Golden Globe! It also became the first independently made film to win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. This movie sold the most tickets ever in Latvian history.

The Story of Flow

The movie begins with a dark grey cat exploring a forest. Suddenly, a group of dogs arrive by a river to catch fish. When two dogs start fighting over a fish, the quick cat grabs it and runs away. The dogs chase the cat, but it escapes. Then, the cat sees a huge group of deer running fast. Right after, a big flood rushes in!

Both the cat and the dogs manage to survive the flood and find higher ground. A yellow Labrador Retriever follows the cat to an old, empty cabin. The cabin has cool wooden cat statues. They both notice the water is rising super fast. The Labrador joins the other dogs on a boat. When the cabin is completely covered by water, the cat climbs onto a giant cat statue. But the water keeps rising until it covers the statue's head. Just as the statue goes under, the cat jumps onto a passing sailboat. A calm capybara is already on board.

The next morning, the boat sails through a forest that is partly underwater. The cat falls overboard while trying to avoid a white secretarybird. It starts to sink, but a giant, friendly whale saves it! However, another secretarybird quickly grabs the cat and drops it back near the boat. Soon, the water keeps rising. The capybara invites a ring-tailed lemur to join them on the boat with its basket of cool trinkets.

Later that day, the three animals land on shore. The Labrador joins them again. They meet a group of secretarybirds who are not very friendly. The cat gets scared and runs away, but the birds corner it. A younger secretarybird, who met the cat earlier, tries to convince the leader to let the cat go. But the young bird loses a fight and hurts its wing. The other birds leave it behind. Since it can't fly well anymore, the injured secretarybird joins the boat crew.

The crew then arrives at a city that is half-underwater, near huge stone pillars. The cat learns from the capybara how to swim better and catch fish for everyone. Later, they see the other dogs stuck in a bell tower. The secretarybird doesn't want to help the dogs at first. But when the cat agrees, the secretarybird lets the capybara steer the boat to rescue them. As the boat sails through the stone pillars during a big storm, the secretarybird leaves. It can fly perfectly again!

The cat falls overboard again, but it swims to shore and climbs to the top of one of the pillars. There, it meets the secretarybird in the middle of a maze-like area. For a moment, they both float in the air. The cat floats back down, but the secretarybird flies towards a bright light and disappears.

The cat tries to swim back to the boat, but it's too far away. Luckily, it finds a glass float and uses it to stay above the water. Suddenly, the water level drops very quickly, just as fast as it rose! After a long time wandering through the forest, the cat finds the lemur again. The lemur leads the cat to the boat, which is now hanging from a tree. The dogs jump off the boat. But just as the capybara is about to get off, the tree starts to break because of the boat's weight.

The cat passes the boat's rope to the lemur and dogs. They all work together to pull the boat towards them. But then, a rabbit runs by, and the other dogs chase it, leaving the Labrador and its friends. The capybara and cat manage to jump off just before the boat falls into a deep ditch. As the crew celebrates, another group of deer runs by. The cat follows them and sees the whale from before, stuck on the forest floor. The cat comforts the whale. Then, the capybara, Labrador, and lemur join the cat. They all look at their reflections in a small puddle of water.

After the movie credits, you can see a whale swimming in the ocean.

How Flow Was Made

Director Gints Zilbalodis in January 2025

In 2012, Gints Zilbalodis made a short film called Aqua. It was about a cat learning to overcome its fear of the ocean. This short film gave him the idea for Flow. For his earlier films, Zilbalodis used a different animation program called Maya. But in 2019, he switched to Blender. He liked Blender because it could show animations in real-time, which made the process faster.

Making Flow took Gints Zilbalodis and his team five and a half years, starting in 2019. The film has no talking, and Zilbalodis said he was inspired by famous filmmakers like Jacques Tati and the anime series Future Boy Conan. They didn't use traditional storyboards. Instead, Zilbalodis would place the animal characters in a scene and "explore them with the camera." There are no scenes that were cut from the final movie.

Zilbalodis based the cat and the dog characters on his own pets. For the capybara, ring-tailed lemur, and secretarybird, he studied real animals at zoos. The whale was first planned to look like a real whale, but they changed its design to make it look more magical. Also, the secretarybird was originally going to be a seagull, but they changed it because a seagull was too small for the story. The boat the characters use was inspired by Mediterranean boats called feluccas.

Other film companies, Take Five and Sacrebleu Productions, joined the project in 2022. They helped with animating the characters and creating the sounds. Even while Flow was still being made, parts of the film were shown at a big animation event in Bordeaux in 2022. The movie got money from several places, including the National Film Centre of Latvia and ARTE France. The animation work was finished in France and Belgium.

Gints Zilbalodis and Rihards Zaļupe composed seven hours of music for the film! About 50 minutes of that music was used in the final movie. The sound designer, Gurwal Coïc-Gallas, used real animal sounds for most of the characters. But for the capybara, real capybara sounds were too high-pitched. So, Coïc-Gallas used the sounds of a baby camel instead! Coïc-Gallas's own cat, Miut, was the voice of the cat in the film.

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

The Music of Flow

The music for Flow was created by Gints Zilbalodis and Rihards Zaļupe. The film's soundtrack was released on music streaming platforms by Milan Records on November 1, 2024.

All songs written and composed by Gints Zilbalodis and Rihards Zaļupe.. 

Where and When You Can See Flow

Flow had its very first showing at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2024. It was shown in a special section called Un Certain Regard. This was the first time a Latvian film was shown in that section since 1998!

The movie was also shown at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. There, it won the Jury Award, the Audience Award, and another award for distribution. Flow also won the Grand Prize for Feature Animation at the 2024 Ottawa International Animation Festival. It was also shown at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival. In October 2024, Flow was invited to the 'Open Cinema' section of the 29th Busan International Film Festival. It won a Special Jury Award at the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival.

Flow first premiered in Latvia at the Splendid Palace cinema in Riga on August 28, 2024. It was released all over Latvia the next day. In France, UFO Distribution released the film in theaters on October 30, 2024. It had a limited release in the United States on November 22, 2024, and then was shown in 200 more theaters on December 6. The film was released in Belgium on January 15, 2025. It opened in 800 theaters in Mexico on January 1, 2025. In India, PVR Inox Pictures will release Flow on February 28, 2025. Madman Entertainment plans to release the film in Australia on March 20, 2025.

Home Media

In the U.S., you will be able to watch Flow at home in amazing 4K on Blu-ray. It will be released by The Criterion Collection in 2025.

See also

• List of Latvian submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film