'Dog of God' Courtesy of Media Move Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Latvia made a splash at the 2025 Oscars by winning the best animated feature award for Flow. The small Baltic country's submission for the 2026 best international feature film Oscar is, again, an animated movie. But Dog of God, from director brothers Lauris and Raitis Abele, is very, very different from Flow, including being a genre film and being much more graphic and provocative. While director and producer Gints Zilbalodis' Flow told the dialogue-free story of a solitary cat's emotional journey, Dog of God is set in the 17th century and focuses on a woman accused of witchcraft and how her trial uncovers the existence of a werewolf. Rooted in Latvian folklore, it explores such themes as tribalism, the role of power elites, religion, and dogmatic thinking and rhetoric. The result is a frenzied fever dream full of horror, sexual desire, and myths. Related Stories TV Ruth Wilson on That 'Down Cemetery Road' Finale and Hopes for a Season 2 With Emma Thompson: "There's More Juice in That Relationship" TV SkyShowtime Sets Two-Part Doc on Polish Singer Edyta Górniak (Exclusive) The brothers co-wrote the script with Ivo Briedis and Harijs Grundmanis. The voice cast features Regnars Vaivars, Jurgis Spulenieks, Kristians Karelins, Einars Repse, Agate Krista, and Armands Bergis. Producing the film were Raitis Abele for Tritone Studio and Kristele Pudane, with Giovanni Labadessa serving as a co-producer. Media Move is handling global sales on Dog of God, for which ESC Films acquired the French rights for the project. "Dog of God was a strange and intense experience - even in the making, it often felt like we were chasing something wild and unknowable," Lauris and Raitis Abele said in a statement ahead of the film's world premiere at Tribeca. The Abele brothers talked to THR about Dog of God, how they originally planned it as a live-action movie, and why they hope to provoke debate rather than being politically correct. The film's story is inspired by actual events that took place "60 kilometers from where we live," Lauris tells THR. And the belief in witchcraft and related ideas is still widespread. "We're a Christian country, but we're quite pagan." The brothers' unusual cinematic voice stems from their appreciation of things that surprise them. "We like weird cinema, surreal cinema," Lauris explains. "There are new narratives which we could see emerging [more and more], because everything is so calculated and very commercialized these days. For commercial product, you can't afford experiments or weird stuff." While Dog of God was initially planned as a live-action story, animation helped with the brothers' interest in pushing the envelope. After the brothers' psychedelic first feature film, Troubled Minds (2021), about their experience with a bipolar artist friend, Raitis was asked to work with the team of the Latvian animators of Flow. "I was helping them out with our studio, and I was just in this environment of animation experiments," he recalls. When the Dog of God script didn't get the hoped-for reaction from the country's film center and various people the creatives pitched it to, Raitis suggested the animation approach. But Lauris was against it. But when an animator friend of theirs created some sketches, things changed. "Lauris said, 'Oh, this is something that we would like to watch ourselves,'" Raitis tells THR. "So, we changed the script to go more fairy tale, because animation opens up more possibilities." The brothers are happy with that choice to this day."Animation gave us freedom," Lauris tells THR. "In an adult animation world, we can go to hell rather than filming with a blue screen or finding real caves. It gave us a lot of artistic freedom. There are not many boundaries. We could do pretty much anything." Or, as Raitis puts it: "What we say when we introduce the film is, 'and now for something completely different'." 'Dog of God' Media Move That also means that Dog of God is different from the Latvian animated hit Flow, even though some animators worked on both movies. "Our film is absolutely on the other end of the spectrum," Raitis emphasizes. "And the reaction from the film center was also positive. They liked this film, and they liked that it's different. If it were similar, but did not reach the same heights as Flow, that would be bad. It's very hard to compete with somebody who got an Oscar. But we went in the opposite direction. Flow has opened doors for Latvian animation. But it's also good for the Latvian Animation Association that we are showing different kinds of films." The brothers are particularly proud and happy that Dog of God has found audiences beyond genre festivals. And that even though the film includes "pagan se