“Flow,″ a wordless cat parable, has won the Oscar for animated feature at Sunday’s 97th Academy Awards. Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis used Blender, a free, open-source graphics software tool using computer generated animation, to create the film. The result is a dreamy aesthetic paired with a peaceful, yet post-apocalyptic, fable about a black cat, dog, capybara, ring-tailed lemur and secretary bird trying to survive a catastrophic flood. This is Zilbalodis’ second animated film as a director and first Oscar win. The success of the film is shared with producers Matīss Kaža, Ron Dyens and Gregory Zalcman. The film beat “The Wild Robot,” “Inside Out 2,” “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” and “Memoir of a Snail.”
