Movie made with open source software makes history

Screenshot from the IMDb database.

The Latvian movie, Flow (2024), has made history for more than one reason.

Wikipedia describes Flow as “… a 2024 animated adventure film directed by Gints Zilbalodis, written and produced by Zilbalodis and Matīss Kaža. A Latvian, French, and Belgian co-production, it features no dialogue and follows a cat trying to survive along with other animals in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world as the water level dramatically rises.”

Flow is the first Latvian film to be nominated for and win an Academy Award — a history-making achievement for Latvia. It had two nominations in the 2025 awards, one for Best International Feature Film, and it won for Best Animated Feature. It also won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. It’s already garnered a staggering total of 72 award nominations and 55 Wins. The IMDb web site has the complete list.

The other reason this movie made history — it was made entirely with Blender, the free open source software (FOSS) for 3D animation. According to the Blender website:

Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game asset creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases. Blender is well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its unified pipeline and responsive development process. Examples from many Blender-based projects are available in the showcase.

Blender is cross-platform and runs equally well on Linux, Windows, and Macintosh computers. Its interface uses OpenGL to provide a consistent experience. To confirm specific compatibility, the list of supported platforms indicates those regularly tested by the development team.