‘I Am Frankelda’: The Ambriz Bros. Discuss the Making of Their Pioneering Mexican Stop-Mo Feature

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It’s been a busy few years for Cinema Fantasma. The Mexico City-based stop-motion studio, founded by brothers Roy and Arturo Ambriz, is straddling multiple productions. One of those projects is Women Wearing Shoulder Pads, a television series created by Gonzalo Cordova whose Almodóvar-influenced stop-motion is produced by Cinema Fantasma. Another is I Am Frankelda (Soy Frankelda) — touted as the first stop-motion feature made entirely in Mexico. It’s a gorgeous, handcrafted fantasy musical based on the TV show Frankelda’s Book of Spooks, and it blew away audiences at the Annecy and Fantasia festivals alike.

I Am Frankelda continues to build buzz ahead of its premiere in Mexico and as it seeks international distribution. At the time of writing, the brothers are in the midst of a new edit of the film (they’re looking to make it a little “more agile” than the cut that has been shown at festivals), with some guidance from none other than director Guillermo del Toro (and his frequent editor Evan Schiff), who helped secure distribution in Mexico.

“It feels like being with Gandalf or in Hercules when he’s training with [Philoctetes],” Roy Ambriz jokes about the partnership. “Sometimes we are able to meet [del Toro] or to write to him; he gives us some advice and helps us a little bit, but then he goes off on his own adventures.”

¡Viva Animación Mexicana!

As for how I Am Frankelda became the first stop-motion feature film fully produced in Mexico, Arturo Ambriz says that, historically, the stop-motion animation scene in the country feels like it has slanted toward auteurist short film projects. But the brothers also think that focus is changing. “I think there are a lot more feature films coming here in Mexico, especially in stopmotion,” he says. “We really want to see them all. There are a lot of people animating in Guadalajara, in Cuernavaca, Puebla, Monterrey. There are a lot of cities that have these, like, stop-motion hubs developing.”

Not only a milestone, I Am Frankelda is a very personal project in more ways than one. The Ambriz brothers’ relatives work as artists and managers at Cinema Fantasma, which had its beginnings at their family home. “My father is a project manager, and he helps us a lot to organize the studio,” says Roy. Roy’s wife, Ana Coronilla, is the art director of the show and the film, while Arturo’s wife, Irene Melis, is the film’s cinematographer. “My mother is a graphic designer, so she also helps with production but also doing props, doing wardrobe for the characters and painting, and she has a really good eye and a good hand to help us. So all our family is involved in this, and it’s the only way in which we can achieve this production being in Mexico.”

I Am Frankelda expanded from what was initially planned as a 30-minute special for HBO Max and Cartoon Network — upon its transition into a feature, the Ambriz brothers had to find funding for the rest of the film beyond the 30 minutes HBO had originally commissioned. They eventually put their own money into the project, pivoting from their original plans to make another feature, Ballad of the Phoenix (which was pitched at the MIFA at Annecy Festival in 2022). “Nobody believed that a feature film in stop-motion could be produced,” says Roy. “And we said we have to do it by ourselves and then hope that this film opens up more opportunities.”

 

“Sadly, there’s nothing more Mexican in this industry [than] when you are young and you’re trying to find your own voice, when the older generation sees what you are trying to do, most of them try to block you or to tell you that you are not worth enough.” 

— Writer-director Arturo Ambriz

 

I Am Frankelda is just as close to home in front of the camera as it is behind the camera — much of the Ambriz brothers’ own experiences making art and stop motion in Mexico is tied into the story. “I Am Frankelda is the story of the past 10 years for us. Sadly, there’s nothing more Mexican in this industry [than] when you are young and you are trying to find your own voice, when the older generation sees what you are trying to do, sadly, most of them try to block you or to tell you that you are not worth enough.” Roy says this was represented in the spiderlike monster Procustes, who torments Frankelda. The character draws on an experience the brothers had with one producer who told them to give up on filmmaking and assist him instead.

The aforementioned Procustes is a highlight of the film, and the complications of animating him are self-evident. Arturo says that, during the show, the character only appeared in one scene, much to the relief of the animation team. “He has like three or four shots in the entire Season 1, so everyone was fine, it’s manageable.” But for the feature film, Procustes turned out to be the character with the most dialog. “And he’s always walking, climbing, fighting, yelling, singing, dancing,” Arturo adds. “He’s a heavy character, and all of his legs have mechanisms, and every hair is hand-poked.”

The construction team eventually created mini versions of each character from halfway through production to the end. “All of the full shots and long shots, extreme long shots, were created with smaller puppets,” Arturo says. “Then it was a lot lighter to animate and to rig.” This intensive, handmade construction was preferable to the alternative: The brothers underline that although they experimented with greenscreen, most shots using it got cut from the film.

They also drew on folklore and even nature around them. Roy Ambriz says that their design for a mermaid incorporates the features of an axolotl, an animal that is endemic to Mexico City. The two shout out visual artist Bruce Zick (known for his work with Disney) as a key figure in helping reconcile all their tastes into the design of I Am Frankelda. He worked on production design alongside Ana Coronilla and helped create the film’s world of monsters, taking inspiration from the engravings of Gustave Doré.

Fantastic Monsters

Other sources influenced the atmosphere of I Am Frankelda, and the brothers were conscious of trying to make something that felt fresh, with a different take on Mexican storytelling. “A Mexican high-fantasy piece with monsters, with mythology, with its own language —  something that feels ingrained in the Mexican culture but not draining each and every last drop that can be exemplified from stories made outside Mexico,” as Arturo describes it.

The film absorbs this culture into its context — it’s present, but not overt. “The things that are a part of our life are like colonial streets, syncretism and a search about what is Mexican and what isn’t,” Arturo notes. There’s a consideration of assimilation — as the brothers point out, Mexico City has a lot of Parisian details in the architecture and ornaments. “At the same time, we have an amazing Mesoamerican, pre-Columbian culture. So those are the aspects that we enjoy about Mexico, and that’s what we really try to infuse in Frankelda. You can watch Frankelda, especially the parts which are in the real world, and you will not be thinking all the time that you are in Mexico. You just forget about it, but it’s there, it’s part of the context.”

 

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I Am Frankelda will be released in theaters in Mexico on October 23. The film is a production of Cinema Fantasma, Warner Bros. Discovery, Dine Vendaval and Woo Films, with distribution by Cinépolis.