Gints Zilbalodis in the context of Minimalist film

Flow (Latvian: Straume) is a 2024 independent animated adventure film directed by Gints Zilbalodis, written and produced by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža. A Latvian, French, and Belgian co-production, it features no dialogue and follows a cat trying to survive along with other animals in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world as the water level dramatically rises.

Production of Flow started in 2019, and lasted five-and-a-half years with the animation done using the free and open-source software Blender. Jacques Tati and Future Boy Conan served as inspirations for the film. No storyboards were used for the production and there are no deleted scenes.

Matīss Kaža (born August 31, 1995) is a Swedish-Latvian filmmaker. He is best known for co-writing and co-producing an animated film Flow (2024), which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, making him the category's youngest ever winner at the age of 29, beating Andrew Stanton in a 21-year streak.

Before Flow, he has previously written and directed documentary films such as Month of the Witches (2012) and One Ticket Please (2017) as well as directing Latvian-language drama films during his career such as Neon Spring and The Taste of Water (both in 2022). He founded a production company Trickster Pictures while also served as a lead producer at Gints Zilbalodis's Riga-based animation company Dream Well Studio.