Storytelling Through Animation: A Conversation with ‘Flow’ Director

Inspired by Aqua, a 2012 short film he produced while still in high school, Flow centers on a stray cat caught in a flash flood who must find a way to survive by trusting and cooperating with others. “With Flow, I’m more interested in the cat’s fear of others instead of the water, his relationship with other animals he meets on this journey.” 

Stylistically, the two films are quite different – Aqua is energetic, with rapid edits, while shots in Flow can last up to five minutes. With no dialog and a soundtrack of animal sounds and music, Zilbalodis made the film on Blender, an open-source software.

“I’m really proud about bringing attention to Blender,” he says. “I have this free tool and I'm grateful that it’s out there. It allowed us some freedom. We built our own tools within Blender. It’s just as good as expensive tools. I think everyone will use it in a few years.” 

Zilbalodis doesn’t draw frames, instead, he executes a pre-viz CG version of the scene with a rough environment which he explores with virtual cameras, adjusting the set and background for compositional purposes and adding lighting and effects along the way. On his first feature film, Away, he wrote, directed, animated, and composed the music. The idea was to educate himself in preparation for the day he would assemble a team. 

“I like collaborations. There are some things I'm glad to give up. I didn’t animate the characters. We have an amazing team that created the performances,” he confesses, noting his preference for scoring, despite having no musical training. “I write the music while I'm still writing the script. I need to have the music early to guide me, give me an idea of the scene, the tone and atmosphere. And another composer, Rihards Zalupe, with whom I collaborated, worked on this score.”

Raised in a middle-class family of artists, Zilbalodis learned about movies through his father, a projectionist whose work gave the budding animator a free seat at every screening. It inspired him to make short films with his friends, mainly spoofs of movies they’d seen. 

“With live action films, I was limited with locations and actors I could get as a teenager. With animation, I’d have complete freedom and I could take my time and focus on details and not worry about the sun setting,” he says about his preference for animation. 

“I didn’t go to university, I went to high school where we had art classes and I made films in my free time. We got into festivals and it allowed me to travel and meet filmmakers,” he recalls. “And after getting some awards, I could get some funding here in Latvia.” 

For those who have seen Flow, it comes as little surprise which character he most identifies with. “I wrote the story to convey how the cat learns to collaborate with and trust others, which is something I was going through when making the film. There’s some of me in all the characters.” 

With a Golden Globe on his resume, Hollywood is no doubt knocking… but they can’t come in. “I wouldn't be good, working in the industry. I have my own ways. The reason I'm doing all of this is to express feelings and find things about myself through the process,” he says, dispensing with youthful Hollywood dreams. 

“It would be hard to make a film like Flow in the system. That’s why I’m glad to be here in Latvia. We’ve established a studio here where we’ve continued to work on films like this.” 

Up next is another animated film, Zilbalodis’ first with dialog. “It’s something I've been afraid of, but I can’t just make films about cats my whole life,” he says about including humans in the new film. “It’s about the difficulty of making decisions and how it can be overwhelming when you have so many to make. I’m trying to make something that’s nuanced and doesn’t have a simple message, something that feels more honest to real life.”