Flow Music By Gints Zilbalodis & Rihards Zalupe

A wondrous journey, through realms natural and mystical, Flow follows a courageous cat, capybara, lemur, bird, and dog after their homes are devastated by a great flood. From the boundless imagination of the award-winning filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis (Away) comes a thrilling animated spectacle as well as a profound meditation on the fragility of the environment and the spirit of friendship and community. 

The animated, wordless film is both a thrilling spectacle as well as a profoundly moving narrative, its masterful visual storytelling matched by Gints Zilbalodis and Rihards Zaļupe’s score. Zilbalodis’ second project working alongside a composer, the mostly self-taught filmmaking multihyphenate began crafting early sketches of the score himself before bringing in Zaļupe, the versatile percussionist adding a distinct rhythmic movement to the music. Alternating between soaring strings and plucky percussive melodies, the 23-track score effortlessly captures the atmospheric quality of the film as well as its deeply affecting narrative.   

“For me making the music is probably the most fun and exciting part of the whole filmmaking process,” says director and co-composer Gints Zilbalodis. “With Flow I started working on the music while I was still developing the script which helped me not only to understand the rhythm and tone of the film, but even gave me ideas for how the story would evolve. Having the music so early also allowed me to use it to edit the film instead of using temp music from other films which made the music really integrated into the core of the film. After the editing of the film was finished, I understood that I’d reached the limits of my musical abilities, so we decided to ask Rihards Zaļupe to come on board and help with finishing the score. Rihards took the sketches I’d made and elevated them to a much higher level. He helped the score feel more cohesive as a whole and added a lot of nuance and specificity to the emotions. For me it was a truly special moment when I could hear Rihards conducting the orchestra which performed the music which had begun its life on my laptop, and now had truly come to life in such an incredible way.”  

Co-composer Rihards Zalupe adds of their collaboration, “Gints had created a rather minimalistic sketches, which I really liked because it featured a lot of percussion and a wide range of electronic instruments. However, at the film’s climax Gints has made also a very lyrical, melodic music theme. I found it very necessary to extend it throughout the entire expanse of the film. I felt I could enhance it by adding a meditative musical tone, which seemed vital for the film itself.  And I felt it was very necessary because, together, it created a wonderful connection, like yin and yang or plus and minus, without which these acting characters would not have been able to survive.  

The most wonderful result was that Gints, with his minimalistic, rhythmic music, had already established a tone for each scene, wonderfully complementing the rhythmic direction of each scene in the film. This task of mine—working with melodies and melodic themes, adding these meditative tones, as well as orchestrating all the live instruments and the entire musical arrangement—complemented each other greatly.” 

Making its global debut as Cannes Film Festival’s official Un Certain Regard selection, sweeping awards at the Annecy Film Festival, including for Best Original Music, and nominated for Best Animated Feature at the European Film Awards, Flow debuts in select US theaters on November 22 with a wide expansion to follow on December 6 from Sideshow and Janus Films.