I Am Frankelda Trailer: Mexico’s First Stop-Motion Feature Comes to Netflix This June

by · The Film Stage

After getting much buzz on the festival circuit last year, the first-ever stop-motion feature film produced in Mexico is coming soon. Directed by Arturo Ambriz and Roy Ambriz, who worked under Guillermo del Toro, the fantasy tale I Am Frankelda will now arrive on Netflix beginning June 12. Ahead of the release, the new trailer and poster have arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “In 19th-century Mexico, Frankelda is a gifted writer whose dark tales are ignored and dismissed. Forced to suppress her voice, she refuses to give up, even as many try to silence her. But when she is thrust into her subconscious, the very monsters she created come to life. Guided by Herneval, a tormented prince trapped between dreams and nightmares, she must restore balance between fiction and reality before both realms collapse. Meanwhile, the sinister writer Procustes and his conspirators plot to seize control. As Frankelda and Herneval grow closer, their bond becomes both a strength and a curse. To rewrite their fate, she must confront a love that defies existence and reclaim her power as a storyteller—before dark forces consume her imagination and reveal horrors beyond her creation.”

Jared Mobarak said in his review, “More than the similarly mythologized Monsters, Inc., the first stop-motion feature produced in Mexico (courtesy of the Cinema Fantasma studio) recalls an old childhood favorite from the ’80s: Little Monsters. Just like that Fred Savage vehicle, writers-directors Los Hermanos Ambriz (Arturo and Roy) have created a means to connect reality to nightmare so a human might embrace the latter’s mischief, mystery, and terror that the former rejects. The 19th-century-set I Am Frankelda is thus born from a young woman’s mind (Mireya Mendoza’s Francisca Imelda) as a manifestation of her aspiration to become a horror writer––a dream met with major pushback from publishers, society, and family alike.”

See the trailer below.