Netflix's I Am Frankelda wouldn't exist without Guillermo Del Toro

How Mexico's first stop-motion feature film came to be

“Frankelda” has been a household name in Mexico ever since the dark stop-motion fantasy launched on HBO Latam in 2001. Roy and Arturo Ambriz, the brothers behind the hit series, regularly receive fan-made toys, pinatas, and fan-fiction in the mail. But now, with their debut feature film, which arrives on Netflix in June, they're hoping to bring Frankelda to the rest of the world — with some help from none other than Guillermo Del Toro.

"He's like our champion, our knight," Roy Ambriz tells Polygon. "He has been our mentor since we started 15 years ago with our first short film."

I Am Frankelda zooms out from the horror-tinged anthology series to tell the story of its eponymous, ghostly author, whose fantastical stories make up the original show. Set in 19th-century Mexico, the story follows Frankelda as she enters her own macabre subconscious and embarks on an adventure to save the world she brought to life with her imagination. With a stunning, hand-made aesthetic that mixes traditional stop-motion with multimedia flourishes, the movie both serves longtime fans eager for new lore while also offering an easy on-ramp for new audiences on Netflix.

For the Ambriz brothers, who we spoke to over Zoom for Polygon's 2026 Summer Preview, it was also a chance to expand the scale and scope of their gothic story.

"We really wanted to make a big universe," Arturo says. "Since we had this opportunity to do a feature film, we really tried to put everything we had in it."

There were plenty of hurdles along the way, and one savior in the form of Guillermo Del Toro, who helped ensure I Am Frankelda got made and shepherded it to Netflix. For one thing, the Mexican entertainment industry had never produced a full-length stop-motion movie before.

“There's no infrastructure," Arturo says. "A lot of stop-motion creators in Mexico also really enjoy the format of the short film. We do not. We are driven towards great narratives: Long films, long books, trilogies, long series. We always knew we wanted to make feature films. It's been an obsession for us."

Warner Bros. helped fund the project, which started out as an hour-long special before ballooning until a full film, but the studio only covered about a third of the budget. The rest came directly from the Ambriz brothers, who bet everything on I Am Frankelda. They even mortgaged their family home to raise the necessary cash.

"When we finished the film, we had a lot of doubts and a lot of debts," Roy says.

"We didn't know anything about distribution," Arturo adds. "It was difficult because nobody believed that this was going to be the success it is now."

The Ambriz brothers weren't sure what to do next, but once the film was released in theaters in Mexico it became a hit — and Netflix took notice. Del Toro, who was working on Frankenstein at the time, helped seal the deal. Arturo notes that not only did Netflix agree to distribute the film, but the streamer is also "creating an amazing dub that might be even better than the original Spanish version."

Whether Frankeldale becomes a worldwide sensation or not, the Ambriz brothers just hope their unlikely little stop-motion movie can reach and inspire the people who need it most.

"This film is made for all the creative people that are out there that feel that they are not listened to, that they cannot do their own stories or that also all the people who fear artificial intelligence," Roy says. "This is made with human hands and hearts, and it's made for them."

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I Am Frankleda hits Netflix on June 16.