Flow is a visually stunning and deeply emotional animated film that unfolds without dialogue. Its story is told entirely through movement, expression, and breathtaking scenery. Directed by Gints Zilbalodis, the film follows a lone cat navigating a post human world where rising waters force it to form an unlikely bond with other animals. Every frame feels like a painting, immersing the viewer in vast landscapes—submerged cities, stormy seas, and mysterious labyrinths—brought to life with rich, atmospheric lighting and fluid animation.
Flow is visually stunning—a testament to both creative independence and the artistic process. From its wordless storytelling to its painterly visuals, every aspect of the film reflects the singular vision behind it.
Curiosity and self-directed learning
Curiosity, self-directed learning, and an obsession with craft have always been the real engines of creativity. Flow reminds us that you don’t need permission, a perfect plan, or the “right” credentials to create something remarkable. What matters is the willingness to explore, build skills by doing, and trust that the work will teach you what you need to know.
The most meaningful projects often begin as experiments—small ideas that grow through persistence, problem-solving, and a deep connection to the process.
The film’s absence of words places a focus and amplifies its emotional depth, making every interaction between the animals feel meaningful. It is as much about survival as it is about connection, exploring themes of trust, loss, and resilience with quiet beauty. It’s a rare animated film that invites you to feel, letting its world and characters linger long after the final scene.
This kind of storytelling—where every glance and movement carries meaning—requires an artist with a deep connection to the work. For Zilbalodis, that connection was forged through years of self-directed experimentation.
Define your own creative process
Gints Zilbalodis’ journey in creating Flow is a rare example of independent filmmaking at its most ambitious. Without formal training in traditional animation pipelines, he relied entirely on self-teaching, open-source tools, and an instinctive approach to storytelling. He didn’t work from a script in the usual sense or use storyboards. Instead, he placed his characters into digital environments and explored them through the camera, searching for the story as he moved through the space. This method, which mirrors live-action cinematography more than conventional animation, allowed for a dynamic and fluid sense of motion, giving the film a unique rhythm that feels discovered rather than pre-planned.
Learn by doing
His approach to learning was deeply iterative. Before Flow, Zilbalodis had been making animated short films independently since his teenage years, using each project to refine his techniques. For much of his early career, he worked with Autodesk Maya, but in 2019, he fully transitioned to Blender. Blender’s real-time rendering engine, EEVEE, allowed him to work more immediately and intuitively—seeing changes instantly rather than waiting for slow renders, making him more connected with his work and creative process. All creatives benefit from this kind of immediate, tangible connection to the work—a principle championed by Bret Victor. The ability to see and manipulate results in real time made his process more fluid and reinforced his preference for discovery over rigid planning.
A singular creative vision
Zilbalodis didn’t just direct Flow—he animated, edited, and composed a large portion of the music himself. Self-taught at writing music, he composed over seven hours, with only 50 minutes making it into the final film. His approach to composition was exploratory—he created and layered different sounds and moods, choosing what fit aspects of the film organically rather than working from a rigid, predetermined score. His deep involvement in every creative layer gave the film an unusually cohesive identity that feels personal and unfiltered in a way rarely seen in large-scale animated films.
Despite Flow eventually becoming an international co-production, its core remained Zilbalodis’ singular vision. His real-life pets and observations of animals in zoos inspired the characters, reinforcing his preference for realism over exaggerated cartoon expressions. The absence of dialogue and anthropomorphism, influenced by Jacques Tati and Future Boy Conan, was a deliberate choice—he wanted to tell the story purely through movement, framing, and sound, trusting the audience to engage without exposition.
A milestone in independent animation
The entire film took five and a half years to complete, an extraordinary feat considering that much of it was driven by one person’s creative momentum. With a budget of €3.5 million, Flow became the highest-grossing film in Latvian history, earning $20 million worldwide. It was also the first Latvian film to win a Golden Globe and secure an Academy Award nomination, a milestone that has sparked greater investment in the country’s animation industry.
Beyond its accolades, Flow has resonated with filmmakers and creatives drawn to an alternative creative process. In an industry where animation often depends on large teams and rigid structures, Zilbalodis’ success is a rare example of how a singular vision, when fully realized, can be a defining creative act. His work challenges the idea that independent filmmaking has limits—it proves that with persistence, curiosity, and a deep connection to craft, an artist can bring their vision to life on their own terms.
Creativity begins with curiosity and takes shape through action.
At its core, Flow is a testament to what’s possible when filmmakers—or any creative—shape their own process, learning through doing, trusting their instincts, and experimenting with new tools. Zilbalodis’ journey reminds us that you don’t need permission or the perfect conditions to create something meaningful. Creativity thrives in curiosity, exploration, and the courage to build something new.
Questions to reflect upon
- What’s stopping you from starting the creative project that excites you?
- How can you experiment more in your creative process instead of waiting for the perfect plan?
- Are you relying on traditional methods because they work or because they’re familiar?
- What would your work look like if you trusted your instincts more?
- What tools or techniques have you been curious about but haven’t tried yet?
- How can you create a more immediate, hands-on connection with your work?
- What would you make if you had no rules, expectations, or need for permission?
