Last May, after five and a half years of work, Gints Zilbalodis’ computer-animated silent movie Flow was presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Now this unlikely project has a great chance of making Oscars history. Competing alongside behemoths like Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and the latest Wallace & Gromit movie in the Best Animated Feature category, Flow breaks 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 ion project of independent Latvian filmmakers backed exclusively by European studios.

Yet the movie’s visually stunning animation sets it apart, even from its outstanding fellow nominees, which include DreamWorks box-office hit The 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 as making 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

Flow comes 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 behind The Wild Robot, seems incredible in a category that also contains two much higher-profile critically acclaimed films. Indeed, if Flow were to win, it would become the first animation to claim the prize without Hollywood backing, aside from two of Hayao Miyazaki's best movies.

But although Spirited Away and The Boy and the Heron have broken Hollywood’s complete monopoly on Oscars for animated movies, Flow’s victory would be a whole different story. Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli is the most successful anime production company, with serious clout in the industry, which receives financial 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 up Flow, 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 stories in 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 of several key victories in recent years which have signaled a shift in the way the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) distributes its awards. From Parasite’s Best Picture win in 2020 to the Brazilian political drama I’m Still Here appearing among the surprise Oscar nominations for 2025, the Academy has shifted towards recognizing achievements in international cinema more regularly and prominently each year.

This change in attitude towards the rest of the world’s cinematic output reflects the 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 (via New York Times).

This more diverse voting pool necessarily includes more foreign filmmakers – and more 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

The Movie Would Lead The Way For Other International Animations

Nevertheless, the sphere of animated filmmaking is one area in which this more international focus hasn’t yet made a difference in of Oscar winners. While Disney’s three-year drought in the Best Animated Feature category 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 competitors in feature-length animation, Universal subsidiary DreamWorks, Paramount’s Nickelodeon Movies, and Warner Bros’ Village Roadshow Pictures.

A win for Flow, 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’s Flow and Zilbalodis that will have stepped through it, though, showing the way forward for a new generation of animators worldwide.

Source: New York Times