Hometown pride in Riga after 'Flow' wins Latvia's first Oscar

RIGA, Latvia — “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. Hometown pride in Riga after 'Flow' wins Latvia's first Oscar “Flow” won the Oscar for animated feature at Sunday’s 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, which aired starting at 2 a.m. Monday, in an upset over DreamWorks Animations’ “The Wild Robot.” The Oscar statuette is the latest source of hometown pride for the Baltic country of nearly 1.9 million people who have embraced “Flow” and filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis in droves since the world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024. The film — called “Straume” in Latvian — is a peaceful, yet post-apocalyptic, fable about a black cat, dog, capybara, ring-tailed lemur and secretary bird trying to survive a catastrophic flood. Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, in her congratulations on X to the filmmakers, added, “the cat continues to capture the hearts of people worldwide!” In the center of the capital city, an art installation set up in February spells out “RIGA” with the black cat perched atop the “A” to ensure Latvians and tourists alike — including Rinkēvičs, who snapped a photo with it Monday — can pose with the famous feline.