Fantastic work to the creator and team and thank you greatly for allowing me to view this masterpiece! I would love to stay in the loop for the additional features mentioned above.

Full Review | May 6, 2025

…Away a really great little find, a spiritual, thoughtful meditation of self-development and overcoming our fears…delights the eyes as it challenges the mind, and should make a fine amuse bouche before Flow arrives to captivate us all over again...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 12, 2025

Away has the mild rush of a coming-of-age dream, the sort that lodges in your memory as symbolic and significant as you pass from one stage of life to the next.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2025

To say too much would spoilt it. A boy and a little bird are on a journey across a strange island trying to get back home - just spectacular.

Full Review | Jun 1, 2021

A marvellous animated film about a boy traveling alone, from a Latvian multi-media auteur. Plenty to enjoy, for children and adults alike.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 18, 2021

Told without dialogue, this simple story is capably told through image alone. The effect feels like...an extended short film or a beautifully rendered video game.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2021

The propensity for magic recall several Studio Ghibli classics, particularly My Neighbour Totoro and The Red Turtle. But Away is as unique as it is lovely

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 22, 2021

Expanding on the "overcoming the odds" theme from his previous animated shorts, Zilbalodis conjures up an enthralling if unsettling odyssey for his young protagonist...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 21, 2021

If you love animation and appreciate cinema, Away is a piece of filmmaking that truly deserves your attention.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 15, 2021

Gints Zilbalodis deserves big kudos for realising this awesome three-year passion project, which weaves an acutely personal metaphor into an epic open-world adventure.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 15, 2021

Remember the name: Gints Zilbalodis is capable of greatness.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 13, 2021

Refreshing and tranquil.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 18, 2020

It feels like the strangest of dreams, nothing quite looking how it should, and yet you would hesitate to change a single thing. This is art blessed with the miracle of movement.

Full Review | Original Score: 4 / 5 | Sep 4, 2020

It's a mesmerising odyssey that instantly pulls us in, evoking deep feelings of both loneliness and resilience along the way.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2020

[Gints Zilbalodis'] tale of a young man pursued by a looming, shadowy giant is ponderous at times, but its visual ideas - eerie and trippy - count for a lot.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2020

The animation, in close-up, is often rudimentary (the hero's face is a pink splodge with two eyes), but the haunting music and surreal setting more than compensate.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 28, 2020

The animation employed by Zilbalodis is simple, and simply stunning. Basic shapes and palettes colour this world, but they're used in such a unique way that the results are breath-taking.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 27, 2020

A mesmeric minimalist marvel.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2020

The story is fairytale simple and quite strange, and it's no surprise to hear that Zilbalodis made it up as he went along.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2020

A haunting and strange odyssey into a mysterious world.

Full Review | Aug 26, 2020