Mexico · 2025 · PG · 96 min · Spanish with English subtitles
In-person Q&A with Roy Ambriz & Arturo Ambriz
Mexico, the 19th century. Frankelda is a brilliant young writer of ghoulish stories, but society has no place for a girl with her talents. Disheartened, she retreats into her imagination, which teems with mythological monsters and occult oddballs. This realm is hardly more accommodating than the real world: conflict looms as scheming spider Procustes threatens to take power and spread his malign influence through the land.
The imagination is something the Ambriz Brothers know a thing or two about. The filmmaking duo, with their Mexico City-based studio Cinema Fantasma, are behind some of the most inventive stop-motion works of recent years, from the 30-minute Mexican Revolution fantasy Revoltoso to the HBO Max series Frankelda’s Book of Spooks (to which this film serves as a prequel). Their brand of dark fantasy, which nods to Tim Burton and Jim Henson, has drawn admirers including Guillermo del Toro, who has mentored them.
I Am Frankelda marks a step up in ambition – it is Mexico’s first stop-motion feature – without compromising on the hand-crafted appeal of the brothers’ previous work. Every element, from the expressionist sets to the bristles on Procustes’s legs, is rendered with care and tactile charm. As the film reminds us, the imagination is tangible – and perhaps no less real than the world we live in.
