Last May, after five and a half years of work, Gints Zilbalodis’ computer-animated silent movieFlowwas presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Now this unlikely project has a great chance of making Oscars history. Competing alongside behemoths like Pixar’sInside Out 2and the latestWallace & Gromitmovie in the Best Animated Feature category,Flowbreaks new ground at the Academy Awards in more than one sense. Firstly, it was made for less than $4 million using the open-source animation software Blender. Secondly, it’s the passion project of independent Latvian filmmakers backed exclusively by European studios.
Yet themovie’s visually stunning animationsets it apart, even from its outstanding fellow nominees, which include DreamWorks box-office hitThe Wild Robot. The finished product is made more remarkable still by the fact that Zilbalodis and his small production team had only the most rudimentary, free-to-use graphic design software to work with. As well asmaking the movie on the 3D graphics program Blender, Zilbalodis co-scored the film himself, soundtracking his own animation with fluid, atmospheric music in lieu of dialogue.
Flow Would Be The First Animated Feature Winner Not Made By Hollywood Or Studio Ghibli
A Win For Zilbalodis Would Be A True Underdog Story
Flowcomes across as a real contender for the Academy Award for Animated Feature. The movie’s nomination alone is testament to how brilliant and original it is, and its status as second-favorite to win, close behindThe Wild Robot, seems incredible ina category that also contains two much higher-profile critically acclaimed films. Indeed, ifFlowwere to win, it would become the first animation to claim the prize without Hollywood backing, aside from two ofHayao Miyazaki’s best movies.
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But althoughSpirited AwayandThe Boy and the Heronhave broken Hollywood’s complete monopoly on Oscars for animated movies,Flow’s victory would be a whole different story. Miyazaki’sStudio Ghibli is the most successful animeproduction company, with serious clout in the industry, which receives financial support from the Walt Disney Company in exchange for distribution rights. Gints Zilbalodis is a totally independent Latvian filmmaker who was working in complete obscurity until Cannes picked upFlow, just his second feature film, around the time of his 30th birthday. If he wins an Oscar this year,it will be one of the greatest underdog storiesin the history of the Academy Awards.
Flow Winning The Best Animated Feature Oscar Aligns With A Recent Academy Shift
International Movies And Filmmakers Are Now Getting More Recognition
Should Flow win in its category, however, this would be just one ofseveral key victories in recent years which have signaled a shiftin the way the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) distributes its awards. FromParasite’s Best Picture win in 2020 to the Brazilian political dramaI’m Still Hereappearing among thesurprise Oscar nominations for 2025, the Academy has shifted towards recognizing achievements in international cinema more regularly and prominently each year.
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This change in attitude towards the rest of the world’s cinematic output reflectsthe decision by AMPAS to widen its voting pool for the Oscars, following successive campaigns criticizing the disproportionate representation of white men at the Academy Awards. After the Academy committed to opening up the Oscar polls to more diverse constituents within the filmmaking industry in 2016, around 30% of its new voting intake was black and minority ethnic by the end of the last decade (viaNew York Times).
This more diverse voting pool necessarily includes more foreign filmmakers – andmore filmmakers with a more international outlook– than the Oscars previously allowed for. It’s only natural, then, that these voters should rightly focus new attention on non-American movies that would previously have been overlooked.
Flow’s Best Animated Feature Win Could Usher In A New Era For The Oscars
Nevertheless, the sphere of animated filmmaking is one area in which this more international focus hasn’t yet made a difference in terms of Oscar winners. WhileDisney’s three-year drought in the Best Animated Featurecategory has loosened its grip on the award, its studios and subsidiaries have produced or co-produced an incredible 16 out of the 23 previous winners. Aside from Studio Ghibli’s two victories,five of the other seven winners have come from Disney’s main American competitorsin feature-length animation, Universal subsidiary DreamWorks, Paramount’s Nickelodeon Movies, and Warner Bros’ Village Roadshow Pictures.
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A win forFlow, which is Latvian-made and co-produced by French and Belgian studios, would be a watershed moment in Oscars history. It could open the floodgates for internationally-produced animated features to be recognized consistently at the Academy Awards. At the same time, a special mention should go to Miyazaki and Wallace & Gromit’s Aardman Animations (whose collaboration with DreamWorks was more out of financial necessity than anything else), for opening the door in the first place. It’sFlowand Zilbalodis that will have stepped through it, though, showing the way forward for a new generation of animators worldwide.
