I am Frankelda, the newest addition to Netflix’s growing animated movie collection, already has the distinction of being Mexico’s first feature-length stop-motion film. But such an achievement did not come easily, as directors Arturo and Roy Ambriz struggled for years to be given the green light to create their masterpiece. Thankfully, they had acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro as a mentor once they did.
Serving as a prequel to their HBO Max series Frankelda’s Book of Spooks, I am Frankelda explores how young Francisca Imelda overcame the disapproval of mid-19th century society (and the monsters in her mind) in order to share her horror stories with the world. The aspiring author is transported to a parallel universe made from her own imagination when Prince Herneval begs her help to fend off his evil royal advisor, Procustes.
ScreenRant interviewed the Ambriz siblings about the journey they and their studio, Cinema Fantasma, went through in order to make I am Frankelda. The directing duo shared the stop-motion sequences they’re proudest of in the movie, the origins of the characters’ fantastical names, and the way del Toro reshaped their approach to filmmaking.
Creating A Stop-Motion Animation Film Is Its Own Incredible Challenge
ScreenRant: What draws you both to stop-motion animation?
Roy Ambriz: I think stop-motion is the most beautiful artistic form of expression, because it combines all the arts. We love to dedicate our lives to art, and you can be drawing one day, then you’re sculpting, then you are recording singers, writing, working on huge sets, surrounded by gorgeous puppets, and speaking with all these artists that are painting or making models or cutting wood.
Stop motion celebrates the process of art and, because of that, I think it’s one of the most human art forms that exists nowadays. We really love it
ScreenRant: Given that this is the first feature-length stop-motion film from Mexico, were there any challenges on your way to making it happen?
Arturo Ambriz: Yeah, that was our day-to-day. There was no infrastructure. It is not only our first feature film, but it’s the first feature film for the whole team, so our experience was limited to the projects that Cinema Fantasma, our studio, had created.
Before this film happened, we were trying to produce other films, and we had a lot of naysayers who became great obstacles. We applied time and again for national funds, and we always received a negative response, because people didn’t think it was possible to create a stop-motion feature in Mexico. We had to fight against that.
I hope this film shows younger filmmakers and people who want to create things that it is possible to do. It is possible to find a wide release, like the one we have now with Netflix. We really hope this is the first of many.
ScreenRant: As you said, stop motion incorporates various forms of art. Was there any one sequence that was most challenging or exciting to bring to life?
Arturo Ambriz: There are some scenes that we really love, but I think the one that most represents what we were trying to achieve with this film is the musical number, “Prince of the Realm of Terrors,” because we have the cast all singing their hearts out, we have some experimental moments of oil painting animation, we get to see a lot of the different sets, and we get to have some abstract moments in ambiguous spaces. That’s exactly what drove us into this movie.
It’s quite funny, because in Mexico, the film had a theatrical release, and we went to several screenings. A lot of people applauded after the end of that number, so that was very rewarding to us as the creators.
Roy Ambriz: There’s another scene I love, because I dreamt it. It’s when Frankelda sees herself on the lake, and her reflection transforms into her human counterpart, Francisca.
After passing some time with Guillermo del Toro in London and learning a lot about filmmaking, I saw that scene in a dream. When we brought it to Guillermo, he was like, “That’s a perfect scene, you should produce it.” It’s really fantastic that it happened that way, because it’s like Frankelda asked me in my dreams to add that scene, and now it exists. For me, it’s one of the most special scenes in the whole film.
How Frankelda & Herneval Came To Life
ScreenRant: I am Frankelda feels like a prequel to Frankelda’s Book of Spooks. How did this character and idea first come to you?
Roy Ambriz: Frankelda started as a series for HBO Max, and the idea that we had was to do a series of stories that a narrator would tell. We were inspired a lot by a TV show made by Jim Henson called The Storyteller, in which there was this dwarf telling stories with his sidekick, who was a muppet dog. The dog would sometimes make comedic remarks on the story, and we liked the idea of playing with the narrative role of a storyteller.
That’s when we decided to create a writer who tells stories, and the episodes are her stories. But once we had the opportunity to make the film, we decided to explore the original story of this character so we could dive into her mind. We decided that the theme was going to be how a Mexican woman has to fight her way to show the world that her stories are valuable, and that she is a really good writer. She has to travel into her own imagination to fight monsters. That’s how we started creating all the mythology.
ScreenRant: Are there fun origins for any of the character names in particular? Herneval and Procustes are not names you hear in daily life.
Arturo Ambriz: The names of the characters are mostly a mixture of two ideas. Frankelda, for example, comes from two of Mary Shelley’s novels, Frankenstein and Mathilda. Herneval is half Herne, a demon hunter who appears in one of Shakespeare’s plays, [The Merry Wives of Windsor], and half Percival, a Knight of the Round Table. Procustes is from a Greek myth.
ScreenRant: I Am Frankelda is a story about the power of storytelling. What did you each feel you discovered about your own storytelling process while working on this film?
Roy Ambriz: Wow, that’s a great question. I think that for us, when we started writing the film, it felt more like therapy because we had a lot of anger at these producers who were telling us that we were not able to make our stuff. As we were writing, we were healing while we passed our problems to her, and that helped as a mirror.
But now that we are here at Netflix, giving these interviews, I realize that this character is important for a lot of young artists who feel the same as us when we were writing. So, I learned that not only can I heal myself with these stories that we write, but that we can help others to heal and to be inspired by the characters we imagine.
Arturo Ambriz: Yeah, I think it’s great to have representation. The film has had a big impact on Mexican audiences, especially on female creative viewers who identify with Frankelda. A lot of them have written or spoken to us, because they feel that if Frankelda was able to pull it off, they can do the same. It’s great to have her as an example.
ScreenRant: There’s also a beautiful love story between Frankelda and Herneval that really focuses on overcoming obstacles as a team. Did you always have that backstory for them in mind, and how did you want to approach their dynamic when making the movie?
Roy Ambriz: I think that it started as a concept of an author in love with her creation, a little bit like Dr. Frankenstein. When we worked on the series, we said that it would be really cool to have a writer in love with her book.
But when we did that last episode, in which we explored the origin story of Frankelda a little bit, it was the first time we had to think more about what was behind the love story. If he were a prince, where was his kingdom? If there were a kingdom, what would the society of the kingdom be like? What rules did they follow, what language did they speak?
We started creating this world, and at the end, I think that Herneval represents the idea, while Frankelda represents the author. So, it’s an idea falling in love with its author, and the author falling in love with her idea. But is the first step that the ideas choose us as artists in order to exist in the real world? Or, as Plato said, do we create those ideas to exist in the world of the ideas?
What I Am Frankelda Directors Learned From Guillermo Del Toro
ScreenRant: Speaking of Guillermo del Toro, having him as a mentor must be its own fantastic experience. What have you each taken away from that relationship that you feel is most important?
Arturo Ambriz: It’s been amazing to have his mentorship and friendship. When you direct a film, especially if you wrote it, all your ideas and your substance are expelled from inside of you and go into the screen. There’s no way of pretending you are someone you are not, and that’s what we learned from Guillermo.
The process of understanding the mind behind a film is something we would have never understood as well as we have now that we see how Guillermo directs, how he thinks about film, or even how he lives a normal day in which he’s producing a film.
Roy Ambriz: I think that he’s a real alchemist in these times, because he knows how to transform a negative experience into a good one.
For example, the reason he helped us is because, when we finished the film, we had a lot of debts. We were really worried, and when we told him our problems – that we had no idea how to distribute a film or anything – he called us daily for a year to see how we were. He was like, “How do you feel today? You’re going to make it through, just keep moving. Send this email, talk to this person.”
Later on, he told us that the debt is what made him help us. If we had only shown him the film, he would be like, “Good job, continue.” The relationship started because we had real problems, much like he had when he started, so that made our bond a lot stronger. So, I learned from him that sometimes the worst things that happen to us are blessings in disguise.
I Am Frankelda begins streaming June 12 on Netflix.
- Release Date
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June 12, 2026
- Runtime
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104 minutes
- Director
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Arturo Ambriz, Roy Ambriz
Cast
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Arturo Mercado Jr.
Herneval (voice)
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Mireya Mendoza
Frankelda (voice)
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Luis Leonardo Suarez
Procustes (voice)
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Beto Castillo
Rey Ficturo (voice)