Flow (2024) — A Cinematic Journey Through Silence and Survival
Flow (Latvian: Straume) is a 2024 animated adventure film directed by Gints Zilbalodis, written and produced by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža. It is a co-production of Latvia, France, and Belgium. It has no dialogue and follows a cat and other animals as they try to survive in a world that looks like it has been abandoned while the water level rises dramatically.
The animation for Flow was created using the free and open-source software Blender, and production of the film began in 2019 and lasted for five and a half years. The film was influenced by Future Boy Conan and Jacques Tati. The production did not use storyboards, and there are no deleted scenes.
Flow premiered on 22 May 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section, and was released in Latvian theaters on 29 August. It received critical acclaim and broke several Latvian box-office records, becoming the most-viewed film in Latvian theaters in history.
At the 97th Academy Awards, Flow won Best Animated Feature and also nominated for Best International Feature Film as Latvia’s submission, becoming the first film from Latvia to win and receive a nomination at the Academy Awards, and also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film; both statuettes were later put on display at the Latvian National Museum of Art.
Plot
A dark grey cat wanders through a forest. A group of dogs approaches the river to fish. When two dogs fight over a fish, the cat takes the fish and is chased by the dogs. The cat escapes, but notices a deer stampede before it is caught in a flood. The cat and dogs survive the flood and reach higher ground.
With wooden cat sculptures, a yellow Labrador Retriever follows the cat to its abandoned cabin. They both notice the water level rising. On a boat, the Labrador joins the other dogs. As the flood consumes the cabin, the cat climbs atop a giant cat statue until the waters reach the top of the statue’s head.
The statue is completely submerged by the rising water when the cat jumps into a sailboat that has a capybara on board. The following morning, as the boat travels through a forest that is only partially submerged, the cat jumps into the water to avoid a white secretary bird and begins to sink.
It is saved from drowning by a mutated whale, but another secretary bird seizes it, and while the cat is flying, it sees huge stone pillars in the distance. The secretary bird then releases the cat over the boat. A ring-tailed lemur is invited aboard by the capybara with its basket of trinkets shortly after, as the water level continues to rise.
While sleeping, the cat has a dream where it is being circled by a herd of deer, and looks to the massive stone pillars, before being swept away by a flood; the cat then wakes up. The Labrador joins the three other animals when they land on the shore later that day. They encounter a flock of secretary birds that show hostility toward them, causing the cat to run away.
The younger secretary bird that first came into contact with the cat begs the leader to save it, but it loses in a duel and has a broken wing before the flock abandons it. The secretary bird joins the crew despite being unable to fly. Near the base of the massive stone pillars, the crew finds themselves in a city that is half submerged.
The Labrador takes the lemur’s glass float to the secretary bird, to play fetch. The secretary bird kicks it off the boat. The lemur gets angry and starts fighting with the secretary bird, who is steering the boat. Due to loss of control, the boat’s mast is caught in a tree. The whale breaches out of the water, and the waves generated help free the boat from the tree. The cat learns from the capybara and improves its swimming and fishing skills.
Later, the crew rescues the remaining dogs that have become trapped in a bell tower. The secretary bird vanishes as the boat sails through the massive stone pillars during a severe storm. The cat falls off the boat, but swims ashore. It finds the secretary bird on a floor carving that looks like a labyrinth after climbing the stairs to the top of a stone pillar.
A bright portal appears above them after a brief absence of gravity. They are both temporarily weightless, but the cat floats back to the ground, while the secretary bird flies toward the light and disappears.
The cat rushes down the stairs and tries to swim back to the boat, but it is too far. It finds the lemur’s glass float, and uses it to stay afloat. As massive fault lines in the earth open and drain the water, the level of the water quickly falls.
The lemur is discovered by the cat as it wanders through the forest. They find the boat hanging on a tree. The dogs get out of the boat, but just as the capybara is about to get out, the tree starts to fall apart. Lemurs and dogs pull the boat toward them as the cat climbs the tree and gives it to them.
The Labrador and its companions are abandoned by the other dogs when a rabbit runs by. The cat falls, but is caught by the capybara. They both manage to jump off the boat before it falls with the tree into a ravine below. Another deer stampede occurs as the crew celebrates.
The cat runs away, but it comes to a stop when it sees the whale beached in the forest. The cat comforts the whale and looks at the massive stone pillars. The cat sees its reflection in a pool of water surrounded by its friends, saddened by the whale’s demise. In a post-credits scene, a whale is seen surfacing on the ocean.
Production
In 2012, Zilbalodis produced Aqua, a short film about a cat overcoming its fear of the ocean. Flow was based on the premise of Aqua. Up until his 2019 film Away, Zilbalodis animated his previous works using Maya. Due to its real-time renderer, EEVEE, he switched to Blender that year and used it to animate Flow.
Flow was completed in five and a half years by Zilbalodis and his production team after production began in 2019. The film features no dialogue and Zilbalodis stated that he was inspired by Jacques Tati, as well as the anime series Future Boy Conan. Zilbalodis placed the animals in the scene and “explored them with the camera” rather than using storyboards. There are no deleted scenes from the film.
In 2022, Take Five and Sacrebleu Productions began working on character animation and sound for the production. While Flow was still in development materials from the film were presented at the 2022 Cartoon Movie forum in Bordeaux. The Belgian Tax Shelter, the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, ARTE France, Eurimages, RTBF, and the National Film Centre of Latvia all contributed financially to the production of the film.
The film’s animation was finished in France and Belgium. An episode of the LTV documentary series Aizliegtais paņēmiens about the film’s production was released in March 2025.
Flow (2024) — A Cinematic Journey Through Silence and Survival
Prologue: The Sound of Water
It begins not with a word, but with a sound.
A quiet ripple across the surface of an endless sea. A reflection of the sky, mirroring the clouds above, glides across the waves until it fractures—shattered by the prow of a small sailboat cutting through the calm like a brushstroke across an untouched canvas.
There is no voice to guide us. No exposition to ground us. Only the hum of the wind, the cry of a distant bird, and the heartbeat of a world that has flooded into ruin.
Onboard this vessel, a solitary black cat opens its eyes.
Thus begins Flow, a meditative and hauntingly beautiful animated odyssey, told not through language, but through movement, rhythm, and raw emotion. Directed by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis, Flow is a revelation—an elegant, wordless symphony of image and sound that floats above the conventions of modern animation, inviting us not to watch, but to feel.
A World Submerged
The setting is a future where the Earth has lost its breath. Cities lie drowned beneath the waterline, their silhouettes barely visible beneath the blue. Trees stretch their branches skyward like supplicants, their roots swallowed whole. There is no clear catastrophe referenced—no meteor, no war, no plague. Just water. Rising. Reclaiming.
Into this vast ocean drifts a small sailboat, cobbled together from remnants of the past. It is both a vessel and a character, creaking with age and wear, its patched sails fluttering like wings on a tired bird.
The black cat, whose name we never learn, is not just our protagonist—it is our surrogate. Curious, cautious, independent. We see through its eyes, feel through its paws. It does not speak, yet its body tells stories: the arch of its back in fear, the curl of its tail in contentment, the narrowed eyes of suspicion, and the soft purr of brief serenity.
This is not a journey for survival alone. It is a search for something lost—a memory of land, of companionship, of purpose.
Companions of the Current
One by one, they join the cat. Strays, like itself, drawn to the boat as if by some magnetic pull of fate.
First, a Labrador—gentle and loyal, eyes heavy with the weight of past loss. Then a secretary bird, its plumage sharp as the sky, its movements regal and precise. A capybara, sluggish yet wise, carrying the weight of stillness. And finally, a lemur—nimble and wild-eyed, chaos distilled into fur and energy.
There are no spoken introductions. No formal alliances. The relationships form in glances, in body language, in the mutual rhythm of movement and trust. Tensions arise—territories challenged, space invaded, instincts flared. But beneath it all, a common goal emerges: to keep moving forward. To stay afloat.
The ensemble cast is unlike anything found in traditional animation. There are no heroes or villains, no plot-driven arcs. Just creatures learning to coexist in a world that no longer makes space for them.
The Flow of Time
Flow unfolds like a dream—episodic, fluid, surreal. Each segment of the journey introduces new landscapes: flooded forestsMoana 2 (2024) where tree canopies become islands in the sky; abandoned cities where rooftops form a broken skyline; ghostly shipwrecks that rise from the deep like forgotten monuments.
Zilbalodis’s direction is mesmerizing. With long tracking shots and ethereal camera glides, he transforms the screen into a window of wonder. Time stretches and contracts. Minutes pass without a single cut. Days blur together, demarcated only by changes in light, mood, and the shifting temperament of the sea.
It is a film that trusts its audience. It invites patience. It rewards observation.
The Music of Movement
If Flow is a silent film, then its music is its voice.
Composed by Zilbalodis himself in collaboration with Rihards Zaļupe, the score is an emotional roadmap—a guide through the undulating peaks and valleys of tension, joy, fear, and serenity. Electronic pulses echo the rhythmic strokes of the sea, while orchestral swells rise like waves of memory.
There are moments of near-complete silence—only the creaking of wood and the breathing of animals. Then, suddenly, a crescendo: a storm, a chase, a moment of loss.
Like the best musical scores, it doesn’t direct our feelings—it reveals them.
Conflict Beneath the Calm
Despite its meditative tone, Flow is not without danger. Nature, in this world, is both beautiful and unforgiving.
A sudden storm turns the boat into a coffin of panic. The secretary bird lashes out in territorial rage. The cat, at one point, is nearly swept away, clinging to a piece of driftwood while the rest of the animals look on, unable—or unwilling—to help.
There are no clear villains, but fear is ever-present. Fear of scarcity. Fear of change. Fear of one another.
And yet, it is through these trials that unity forms—not through dialogue, but through choice. The decision to help. To wait. To forgive.
The Island
At the film’s heart lies a moment of stillness.
The crew reaches an island—an outcropping of land untouched by water, lush and green. For a brief time, they rest. The cat basks in the sun. The Labrador digs. The lemur climbs. The capybara sits motionless, as if communing with the earth itself.
Here, nature breathes. The sky is open. Hope flickers.
But the flow never stops. The water is rising. The island begins to disappear.
They must leave. Again. Always.
The Fall and the Return
Not all make it.
The journey begins to fracture. Tensions mount. One of the animals disappears—whether by choice or by fate, we do not know. The boat is damaged, patched together in desperation.
The cat changes. Once solitary, it now curls up beside its companions. Once aloof, it now shares food. The transformation is subtle, but profound.
The flow has shaped them.
Arrival Without Destination
There is no final island. No paradise. The journey ends not with arrival, but with understanding.
As dawn breaks on another waterbound horizon, the animals—fewer now, but closer than ever—look not forward, but inward. They are not who they were.
Neither are we.
Epilogue: The Art of Silence
Flow is not a film for everyone—and it was never meant to be. It challenges the language of animation, removing words to amplify meaning. It is both primal and profound, as intimate as a whispered memory and as vast as the ocean it traverses.
In an age of noise, Flow dares to be silent.
And in that silence, we hear everything.
People review(taken from google)
Manav Kaushik
