‘Flow,’ a story that hinges on a cat’s tale

Over the 95-year history of the Academy Awards, a Latvian film has never been nominated for an Oscar. In 2025, it’s possible that Gints Zilbalodis’ celebrated wonder “Flow” will earn not only an animated feature nomination but a spot in the international film category as well. For a film that on its surface is about an unnamed cat who experiences a monstrous flood alongside an overly energetic dog, a friendly South American capybara, a lemur and a statuesque African secretary bird with a damaged wing, these may seem highbrow expectations.

But there’s more to the story, says Zilbalodis, who burst onto the global animation scene after shepherding the 2019 feature “Away” on his own. The filmmaker was inspired to create “Flow,” in part, by a cat he had in high school. At the time, the story manifested itself in a “very simple hand-drawn” short film about a cat and its fear of water — a universal narrative that allowed the story to proceed without a traditional antagonist.

“It’s really just the cat versus nature, or it’s really a cat versus itself. It has to kind of overcome its fears,” Zilbalodis says. “Many years later I decided to revisit this premise. But this time the focus is more on the cat’s relationship with the other animals. The water is just there, a metaphor basically for this fear, because the cat is very independent, and it has to learn how to work together with others and how to trust them.”

With the co-production between Latvia, France and Belgium, Zilbalodis went from being a jack-of-all-trades to forming his own production company — thereby mirroring the loner cat’s sudden need to work in a team environment. “I was quite anxious about doing that. And some of these anxieties are built into this story,” he says. He jumped headlong into a project 50 times bigger than his last feature but also, notably, 50 times smaller than a Disney animated film.

Animals must work together to survive in “Flow.”

(Festival de Cannes)

A larger group of collaborators doesn’t mean Zilbalodis’ influence isn’t felt throughout the film, however. Besides directing, producing and designing most of the main characters, he co-wrote the screenplay and is the cinematographer, editor and composer, among other roles.

“It’s a bit embarrassing that you see my name a few times in the credits, but we needed to list those different titles for contractual purposes,” Zilbalodis sheepishly says. “What I wasn’t really involved with is the actual animation, the movement of the characters, the performance, which I allowed other people much better than me to do. I had every shot designed, edited and lit. But if an animator would suggest something, it was important that we try to incorporate those ideas.”

Still, “Flow” faced several pressing challenges. The first was an age-old animation problem: creating realistic water. Zilbalodis laments that almost “every scene required a new tool to be developed. It’s not like we have one tool for all kinds of water. We have a tool for a puddle, we have a tool for a lake, a stormy sea, a small splash, a big splash. So, we had to develop a lot of new technology and tools.”

The movie also showcases several impressive long takes as the cameras follow the characters. “Some of these shots got so heavy, with so many characters and different environments, that managing it was really difficult. All the pipelines that the animators are used to are not meant for these types of shots. Any adjustments would make the computer freeze for a moment before it readjusted something.”

The film opens with our feline encountering a pack of overzealous canines in the blooming forest before napping in a seemingly abandoned Northern European-inspired home. There isn’t a human in sight, but it appears the onetime owner of the home was a sculptor who was inspired by felines.

“I wanted it to feel quite timeless. It could be like this house is a hundred years old. It could be a newer one,” Zilbalodis says. “That was deliberate. So, the environment is constantly evolving and changing, and it’s not just for the sense of looking pretty. It’s there to kind of help us understand these characters.”

After a flood engulfs the cat’s home, it finds itself in a small sailboat along with the other three animals. As the film progresses, they journey through architectural ruins that are often difficult to place. And, just like the cat, Zilbalodis wants us to feel as though we are experiencing these locations for the first time. And because it’s from the cat’s perspective, everything seems even bigger than it would be from a human point of view.

If you’re hoping for a long expository scene explaining what occurred before the flood, you’ll be disappointed. Zilbalodis would find it “quite boring” to go down that road. He believes viewers should be active participants and not just have everything spoon-fed to them. “I think if the audience has to work for something, they have to pay attention, then they care more about everything, not just the world but the story itself as well. They become more invested.”