Flow,” a wordless cat parable that became the first Latvian film to win an Academy Award, prompted a sleepless night for Latvians celebrating the historic accolade. “Flow” won the Oscar for animated feature at Sunday’s 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles,

Independent film “Flow” won the award for best animated feature at the 2025 Oscars on Sunday night, securing the first Academy Award for Latvia.

In a big win that underscored the growing prominence of indepedent animation, Gints Zibalodis’ “Flow,” the moving dialog-free tale of a solitary cat’s journey as it learns to survive after a great flood – that was made with open-source software Blender for just $3.