Gints Zilbalodis’ animated film Flow is the first Latvian film ever to be nominated for and receive an Academy Award. On Sunday, March 2, Flow was announced the winner of the Best Animated Feature Film category. Flow was also nominated for the Best International Feature Film category.
On March 2, the Academy Awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre, located in the Ovation Hollywood cultural centre, and for the first time the Latvian delegation attended; director Gints Zilbalodis film Flow, produced by producer Matīss Kaža, was nominated in two categories — Best Animated Feature Film and Best International Feature Film. The ceremony was broadcast live on streaming platforms and on TV screens worldwide to an audience of one billion.
«I’m moved by the warm reception our win has had and I hope that it will open a lot of doors to independent animation filmmakers around the world,» said Zilbalodis upon receiving the award. «This is the first time a film from Latvia has ever been nominated, so it truly means a lot for us. We are very inspired and we hope to be back soon.» He also reminded: «We are all in the same boat, we must overcome our differences and find ways to work together».
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Flow was named the best animated feature of last year, overtaking strong competition from Hollywood big-budget projects Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot, the Australian film Memoir of a Snail, and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl by the legendary British studio Aardman Animations.
Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow was also nominated in the Best International Feature Film category.This is the 16th time a film from Latvia has been submitted for the award, and the first time it has made it into the top five of the Oscar nominees. Along with Flow, films from Brazil, Denmark, Germany, and France were also nominated, with Brazil’s I’m Still Here winning the award.
The Academy Awards ceremony was a grand finale to the «awards season» of the global film industry, where Flow has been an astonishing success. Starting with its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was selected for the Un Certain Regard competition, Flow has embarked on an incredibly successful journey at film festivals around the world and has so far won more than 70 international prizes on almost every continent. The most important of these are the European Film Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film of the year, the Golden Globe from the US film industry, two Annie Awards from the International Animation Association in Hollywood, more than ten awards from various US film critics’ associations, and nominations for several prestigious awards such as the BAFTAs (British Academy Film Awards), where Flow was nominated in two categories.
It is important to note that the success of Flow at festivals and various professional awards has also been accompanied by astonishing commercial success around the world, as evidenced by record audience numbers and box office receipts in various countries. Immediately after its world premiere at Cannes, the distribution rights for Flow were acquired in the USA by Sideshow and Janus Films, a consortium of experienced distributors, and Flow soon became the most successful film in their catalogue. The Latvian film is currently playing or is scheduled to play in 45 cinemas worldwide. Most notably, Flow was a huge success in Mexican cinemas, where more than one million people saw the film in its first two weeks of release. Since the beginning of March, the film has also opened in China, where it is expected to be seen by millions of viewers.
Film Flow is supported by the National Film Centre, the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Eurimages, the French National Film Centre, Arte, and Canal+, as well as by various regional foundations and support programmes in France and Belgium. The film is a three-country co-production between Dream Well Studio (Latvia), Sacrebleu Productions (France), and Take Five (Belgium).
Viedokļi