A discussion with Ron Dyens, co-producer of 2025 Academy Awards nominated FLOW.
To flow—defined by Webster as ‘to move with a continual change of place among the constituent particles’—is both a physical movement and a state of mind.
FLOW is also the title of an animated film, extraordinary and unlike any you’ve seen before. It follows a diverse group of animals—a fearful cat, an empathetic dog, a lazy capybara, a narcissistic lemur, and a solitary bird exiled from its flock. They navigate a precarious existence aboard a wind-powered boat as rising waters submerge their habitats and distant memories of mankind’s civilization. Despite their differences, these animals learn to confront together a relentless tsunami, adapting to an apocalyptic world they can neither fully understand nor control.
FLOW’s ability to immerse us in the silent interactions of its animal characters makes it uniquely captivating. Without a single spoken word, the film communicates in ways other movies do not, inviting audiences to explore new forms of introspection, connection, and conversation, much like the animals themselves.
With a modest budget of under four million dollars—compared to the $35 million spent on Pinocchio or $200 million on Toy Story 3—this animated feature has become a surprising global success. It’s been sweeping through festivals, earning dozens of prestigious awards, including a Golden Globe and the Prix Lumière. Since its debut in the ‘Un Certain Regard’ competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in 2024, it has captured the hearts of audiences worldwide. In Cannes, it received a 7-minute standing ovation; in Mexico, over a million viewers in just two weeks in Mexico; and a bewildered, packed 2,000-person theater in Busan, Korea.
And now, FLOW has earned two Academy Award nominations—an incredible and rare achievement for an animated film.
When Ron Dyens, the French producer of FLOW, was introduced at the New York Animation First festival on January 18th, 2025, the President of L’Alliance New York, Tatyana Franck, quoted Guillermo del Toro: the Academy Award-winning director of Pinocchio simply stated FLOW was the future of animated films.
Picture ©DreamWell Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five
Naturally, I had to ask Ron, ‘How does a film with such a modest budget rise to such prominence among major productions?’
“It all comes down to talent,” Dyens told me. “the director Gints Zilbadolis has extraordinary talents. He single-handedly made his first feature-length film on a $40,000 budget. FLOW costs 95 times more than his first film but almost 53 times less than Toy Story 3. That’s about it.”
A Self-Taught Visionary
Let’s talk about Gints Zilbadolis—he’s self-taught, right?
Ron Dyens: Gints is a very intelligent person, and I suspect he may have been a bit of an outsider in the traditional education system. He’s following a path that’s his own and knew very early on what he wanted to do. His parents are artists, and he’s built himself up independently. He knows how to make a feature film on his own. This time, he wanted to challenge himself by working with a team to see if he could communicate his story in a way others could contribute. And it worked beautifully. So, the further we go, the more he socializes through his films, the more confident he becomes, and the more at ease he is with others.
FLOW is not about humanity, but about the end of the world and the eventual disappearance of mankind.
Ron Dyens
FLOW, a low-budget film, uses freely available software. This film de facto breaks all the Pixar codes and norms. Furthermore, it has the ambition to be a film without words, without dialogue.
We’ve got it all wrong, haven’t we?
So why did you, the producer, embark on a project that was all wrong, or at least against the stream?
If you look at films like La Haine, The Artist and Flow, these are films that we consider to be ‘all wrong’ too, because they take us in directions that aren’t ‘all right.’ Life is about perspective. The dominant wealthy-driven point of view, which is imposed on us, is not necessarily the best. This film shows us that we can tell a story with animals that remain true to their nature.
Animation First Festival 2025 (c) JC Agid
A Poetic World Without Humans
With animals that are not representations of humans.
Animals that are not at all anthropomorphized. The worst thing for me is what Disney does with characters like Musafa and the other films. In other words, when children watch The Lion King, they see a world where lions talk to children and are almost too human-like. That’s a dangerous kind of hyperrealism.
That said, FLOW has a unique, poetic, and optimistic version of humanity.
It’s not about humanity, but about the end of the world and the eventual disappearance of mankind.
Humans are not present in FLOW. Cities are, but humans are only hinted at.
Humans existed before the story started. The film has traces of them: we see a sculpture of a man’s hand not yet submerged underwater.
That’s it. Something happened to them: a global war, a disease, a climate catastrophe: they are just no longer there.
This film challenges the idea that humanity is at the center of the world, at the center of everything. We, humans, find it hard to imagine that the world could exist without us. The mere idea that it could exist without us and be beautiful brings tears to the eyes of many viewers. It’s also a relief from the importance we’re given, which isn’t all that important. I don’t know if I’m making myself clear, but people also cry because it reassures them to know that the world can go on without humans.
If I could wish for the future of animation, these images would be its magnificent, breathtaking start.
Guillermo del Toro
There’s a scene where the cat walks down the steps of a ruin—perhaps an ancient theater covered in vegetation. It is reminiscent of ancient Mayan cities, like Calakmul in the Yucatan peninsula, near the Guatemalan Mexican border. Most of its 1,500 buildings are still buried under grass, flowers, and trees inhabited by howler monkeys. Once the Mayans abandoned Calakmul by the end of the 9th century, vegetation swallowed man’s construction. It always does.
That’s what we want. That’s what I want.
But the film remains human through the dimension of the information that can exist among animals that aren’t necessarily made to communicate together—apart from the dog and the cat maybe, though the cat fears all the dogs at first. The film seems to express a certain humanization between the animals.
It is about taking others into account. It’s mainly a metaphor for the way humans can work together, trust each other, learn from each other, and it feels good to say it. Some dogs and cats manage to have fun together. If cats and dogs are what we know best, a bird isn’t supposed to feed the cat a fish.
Or a cat feeding a bird?
And feeding the dog. But the cat learned from the capybara who gave him a banana. He learned from the bird who gave him a fish, and then it’s his turn to give fish to others.
Let’s return to human relationships: How does a French producer get involved in a Latvian director’s project?
My job is to stay attuned to talent wherever it may be, and when I saw Gints Zilbadolis’ first film, I knew immediately that this guy was really talented. I was captivated by the story, the hypnosis, rhythm and vibration. A film is all about vibrations. I absolutely wanted to work with him, and I guess I was right.
The acclaimed Oscar-winning Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro of Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and Pinocchio praised FLOW, calling it ‘a magnificent, breathtaking start for the future of animation.’ What do you think he meant by that?
I think there are three reasons.
First, FLOW rejects the traditional anthropomorphizing of animals we see in Pixar or DreamWorks films.
Second, the camera movements are immersive—like a steady cam that follows the animals closely, creating a deep connection with them.
Isn’t it the same technique Del Toro used in his Pinocchio film?
Yes, these camera movements are very graceful and very enveloping. You really live with the animals.
And the third explanation?
Perhaps it is the future of animation concerning the subject it aims for. Animation is starting to take on the topic of the end of the world but in a realistic way. In this film, the vegetation is very realistic, while the animals are not entirely realistic. More and more, there’s a porosity between different techniques like VR, artificial intelligence, and animation, and in video games and augmented reality, we’re starting to project animals and animal objects that aren’t necessarily realistic but fit into a realistic environment.
A Producer’s Journey
Oh, I am definitely the lemur: I jump all over the place and I am quite intense.
Ron Dyens
When you embarked on this ‘modest’ project as a producer—I mean financially, technically because the director didn’t yet have a long career behind him—did you anticipate its success?
No, I didn’t foresee such a massive success. Yet, as I watched the film evolve and come together, I noticed something remarkable. It was beyond all comprehension for me. The combination of critical acclaim and audience love has been extraordinary. People who have seen this film want to see it again or tell others about it. The word-of-mouth has been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
At the time of this conversation, FLOW has already won 60 awards, including the Prix Lumière and the Golden Globe. And now, these two Oscar nominations. How will this change things for you as a producer?
I think I’ll be a little more in demand. I also feel like an apostle who’s here to share this film for its message, not to make more money.
Why did you want to become an animated film producer?
I come from an artistic family, and I have always liked to write, draw an
