RIGA, Latvia (AP) — “Flow,” a wordless cat parable that grew to become the primary Latvian movie to win an Academy Award, prompted a sleepless evening for Latvians celebrating the historic accolade.
“Flow” gained the Oscar for animated function at Sunday’s 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, which aired beginning at 2 a.m. Monday, in an upset over DreamWorks Animations’ “The Wild Robot.”
The Oscar statuette is the newest supply of hometown pleasure for the Baltic nation of practically 1.9 million individuals who have embraced “Flow” and filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis in droves for the reason that world premiere on the Cannes Movie Pageant in Might 2024. The Nationwide Movie Centre of Latvia calls the movie “an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of Latvian cinema.”
Greater than 320,000 folks have watched it in theaters throughout Latvia, an viewers bigger than every other movie screened within the nation within the final 30 years, based on the movie heart. And over 15,000 folks over 10 days visited the Latvian Nationwide Museum of Artwork to see the movie’s Golden Globe Award — additionally Latvia’s first — on public show in January.
After thanking his cats and canines throughout his acceptance speech, Zilbalodis acknowledged the momentous nature of his win. The movie was additionally nominated for “Best International Feature Film” on the Academy Awards.
“This is the first time a film from Latvia has ever been nominated,” Zilbalodis advised the Los Angeles viewers. “So it really means a lot to us. We are very inspired and we hope to be back soon.”
Latvian musician Ralfs Eilands known as the pre-dawn ceremony as “indescribable! The best sleepless night in my life!” in a publish on X.
The movie — known as “Straume” in Latvian — is a peaceable, but post-apocalyptic, fable a couple of black cat, canine, capybara, ring-tailed lemur and secretary fowl making an attempt to outlive a catastrophic flood. The movie has no dialogue and forces viewers to be mesmerized by the unlikely relationship and understanding between the species making an attempt to flee the rising waters.
“This is a great and historic day for Latvia! And we will all need time to understand what happened, because something big and beautiful occurred!” Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs wrote on X following the win.
Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, in her congratulations on X to the filmmakers, added, “the cat continues to capture the hearts of people worldwide!”
Within the heart of the capital metropolis, an artwork set up arrange in February spells out “RIGA” with the black cat perched atop the “A” to make sure Latvians and vacationers alike — together with Rinkēvičs, who snapped a photograph with it Monday — can pose with the well-known feline. And a particular stamp that includes the starring black cat was launched days earlier than the Oscars ceremony.
Oscars host Conan O’Brien additionally gave a shoutout — and a problem — to a different Baltic state following the “Flow” victory: “Ball’s in your court, Estonia!”
“We’ve got you, @ConanOBrien. Estonia will do its best to catch up,” Kristen Michal, Estonia’s prime minister, replied on X.
