“I Am Frankelda,” now streaming on Netflix, is a stop-motion marvel.
Lovingly handcrafted by brothers Arturo and Roy Ambriz, the film is an extension of their television series “Frankelda’s Book of Spooks,” which was made for Cartoon Network Latin America and aired in 2021. A prequel story, which handily means that no advance knowledge of the property is required, “I Am Frankelda” follows a young woman named Imelda, who is an aspiring writer in Mexico in 1866. She starts to understand that her writing is connected to a mythical land – what she thinks of as characters are real people, and her writing can bridge the gap between worlds.
Now – with a little help from Guillermo del Toro, today’s patron saint of both Mexican film and stop-motion animation – the brothers have completed their vision of “I Am Frankelda,” Mexico’s first independently made stop-motion animated feature and one of the very best animated features of the year.
We spoke with the Ambriz brothers about what it took to pull off “I Am Frankelda,” why stop-motion is being so embraced right now and what they have cooking up next.
Where did this project come from?
Arturo Ambriz: This project actually started as a TV series for HBO Max Latin America and we made five episodes in which there are the stories that Frankelda tells, so she is a narrator, and it was a big hit on Latin America, so then we were wondering what would we do next for the character and for this world of Frankelda, and that’s when we started doing a 30-minute-long special. But then we realized that in this special, what we wanted to tell was the story of Frankelda, but as an author, the origin story, and 30 minutes was not enough in order to tell everything that we wanted to tell and to explore the world that we wanted to create. So we made a co-production with HBO Max Latin America, we started doing the whole process, the whole film in the future length, and we found the rest of the money by ourselves, and that’s how this project started.
This is the first independently produced stop-motion animated feature in Mexico. What was it like mounting that? How much of the infrastructure was already in place?
Roy Ambriz: Well, this year marks our 15th year as a studio. We are the owners of Cinema Fantasma, that’s our stop motion studio, and before that we have made some series, some short films, video clips, ads, so everything we did before this point was in order to reach this moment in which we could be able to do a feature. That’s all we’ve cared about all this time, so the crew that we had with us for all those years was of course involved, as were the core members of the of the production.
It is not only the first stop motion feature in Mexico, but it is also our first feature, and it was also the first feature in which 99% of the crew ever participated. There was a lot of enthusiasm from all the people that worked in order to achieve this result, to enjoy the process, to be able to get their hands on something of this magnitude, and that’s how we were able to do it.
Of course, we’ve learned a lot. It’s very different to do feature than a short or a music video, but the core principles of doing stop-motion animation are the same as the stuff that we have already worked on.
What was the biggest thing you took away from your first feature?
A.A.: I think that we learned a lot about everything – from constructing big sets, how to achieve better quality in every puppet, etc. But I think that the most important thing is that we’ll learn how to [craft] narrative for future films. We had the support of Guillermo del Toro helping us in the last stage of this production where he taught us how to place, in a better spot, the camera, how to be more fluent with storytelling and emotional aspects of the film. I think that as storytellers and filmmakers, that’s the biggest lessons that we have for our future.
Can you talk a little bit more about your relationship with Guillermo del Toro?
A.A.: It was amazing. He not only gave us feedback, but he helped us to find distribution in Mexico, and then he helped us to contact Netflix and to get international distribution. He was very invested in us. He was worried, because when we finished the film, we also had a big debt, and we didn’t know how to sell the film, so he called us daily last year to see how we were doing, giving us advice, cheering for us. He also invited us to go with him to London, he was recording the score for “Frankenstein,” and then to Canada when he was doing the sound mixing of “Frankenstein,” and we learned a lot about seeing how he works until now he has been a good friend and good mentor. He changed our lives.
Let’s talk specifics – how long were you animating on this?
R.A.: The whole production lasted around three-and-a-half years. And just animating two, perhaps two-years-and-a-half. We had 20 animation units, so the puppets were very busy, we couldn’t afford to have many duplicates, so we were running with the puppets from one animation unit to the other, and that was very stressful, and we had to rearrange the calendar every day, like five times, and with first-time animators, first-time photographers, first-time builders, somehow we managed, and we finished.
The movie incorporates all sorts of mediums, whether it’s traditional animation, paper cutouts, stop-motion obviously.
Was that mixed media approach something you always wanted?
R.A.: Definitely. Something that has always inspired us, and that’s probably the train of thought that led us to stop motion, is that we are art fanatics. We absolutely love all expressions of art – poetry, architecture, dance, music, film. It wasn’t enough for us to have stop-motion and puppets, we wanted to have other creative expressions or outlets, so there are little moments throughout the film in which we change a little bit the technique. There are even some live-action shots in there. Since the film is about the creative process, which is internal, it helps a lot to try to come up with different ways to express the way in which characters think, and sometimes changing the technique helps with that.
Are you just as enthusiastic about stop-motion as you were when you started the process?
A.A.: I think that we are more enthusiastic right now. We are in love with this technique, and what we love about stop-motion is enjoying the process. I think that we will do this for the rest of our lives, if we are allowed, and if it’s possible.
R.A.: If it’s early in the morning, and you walk into the set with a hot coffee in your hand, and you watch the scenery and the puppets there before you, and they light the set and you see those particles in the light with that hot cup of coffee in your hand – that’s perfection. That’s the dream.
Why do you think that stop-motion is having such a moment right now?
R.A.: I think it’s a celebration of human beings. It’s a celebration of what building something by hand can achieve. It’s the complete opposite of AI. It’s also the complete opposite of scrolling on your phone all day. It’s so physical, it’s like those videos of people mixing oil paintings, or of people playing with these squishy toys, or even cooking videos, because people want to feel texture, want to feel human objects. It’s so human to want to touch things, and stop-motion gives you that nostalgia for a very physical world. This is the best moment in history to do stop-motion, and we’re very lucky to be here.
What’s next?
A.A.: We’re starting our next film. It’s called “Ballad of the Phoenix.” It’s going to be a medieval adventure. We have some funds in order to do some scenes and we hope with that animation test and that scene we can find the rest of the money. Let’s see how it goes this time but we’re really happy. We have been wanting to do this film for 10 years, so finally we’re starting it, and hopefully there’s more for “Frankelda” in the future, but we want to wait to see how it goes on this massive release with Netflix.
“I Am Frankelda” is currently streaming on Netflix.
