“By winning an Academy Award, Flow is also sure to delight indie animators, proving that projects with relatively small budgets – emphasis on relatively, as Flow still cost over $3.6 million – can stand toe-to-toe with industry giants.”
Flow beat Pixar and DreamWorks for Best Animated Feature. It was made in Blender, which is free, for about $3.6 million. It has no dialogue. The tools stopped being the moat.