Historic Oscar Win for ‘Flow’, Iranian ‘In the Shadow of the Cypress’ Gets Oscar for Best Animation Short

The cat did it. The Latvian/French/Belgian ‘Flow’ by Gints Zilbalodis (producers: Matīss Kaža, Ron Dyens, and Gregory Zalcman) managed to get the Academy Award for Best Animation Feature at the 97th Academy Award.

This is only the second time in the history of the award (since 2001) that a European film gets the Academy Award; the first was back in 2005 when the stop-motion Aardman ‘Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ won the award (with DreamWorks as a co-production company on board). But ‘Flow’ still remains the first fully European-produced film to win Best Animation Feature.  It is also the animation feature with the smallest budget (3,5 million EUR) to win the award.

Even though the film features animals, ‘Flow’ is a non-talking animation feature, and another first in the category’s history (all the previous Academy Award winners featured dialogue). The film tells the story of a cat and its friends in a boat in a post-flood, devoid-of-human environment.

Read Our ‘Flow’ Review

In his acceptance speech, Gints Zilbalodis made a plea for independent animation but also pointed out that ‘we are all on the same boat; we must overcome our differences and come together’

d

The full nominees for Best Animation Feature

Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Matīss Kaža, Ron Dyens and Gregory Zalcman) -winner
Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann and Mark Nielsen),
Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot and Liz Kearney)
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham and Richard Beek)
The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders and Jeff Hermann)

The Iranian 2D animation short film ‘In the Shadow of the Cypress’ by Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi was the surprise winner. This is the first professional film by Shirin Sohani (her graduation film was ‘The Fan’ in 2014). In the film, a former captain lives with his daughter in a house by the sea. Isolated, they have to face the hardships of life. Until an unforeseen event occurs.

Watch ‘In the Shadows of the Cypress’ trailer:

The full nominees for the Best Animation Short.

“Beautiful Men”, Nicolas Keppens (Belgium)
“In the Shadow of the Cypress”, Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi (Iran) -winner
“Magic Candies”, Daisuke Nishio (Japan)
“Wander to Wonder”, Nina Gantz ( Netherlands, Belgium, France, UK)
“Yuck!”, Loïc Espuche (France)

 And their acceptance speech, in which they highlighted the fact that even managing to make the film was a miracle indeed.

The 97th Oscars were held on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood.