Meet the 'I Am Frankelda' directors mentored by Guillermo del Toro

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A VHS tape of 1993’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” introduced brothers Roy and Arturo Ambriz to the tactile whimsy of stop-motion, an animation technique where physical objects are manipulated and photographed frame by frame to achieve the illusion of life.Realizing that the characters on screen were figures in real sets shocked the Mexican filmmakers’ young minds and set them on an arduous path to craft their own worlds.“If there’s something we’ve loved our whole lives it’s toys: collecting them, modifying them, playing with them, creating dioramas for them,” said Roy, 36, from under his dark shades during a recent interview at Netflix Animation Studios in Burbank.“And for us, the most sublime moments in life are when we’re doing something artistic, whether that’s painting, drawing or sculpting.

And stop-motion animation combines all of that.”The culmination of years of tireless work and financial stress for the Ambriz siblings is the breathtaking period fantasy “I Am Frankelda,” Mexico’s first-ever stop-motion feature, which is now streaming on Netflix.“Thankfully, no one put it into our heads that it was impossible to do this,” said Arturo, 38.“That’s why we don’t like going around saying that this is extremely difficult, because maybe if young people hear that, they might not want to do stop-motion.

Don’t tell them!”A lavish musical, “I Am Frankelda” follows Francisca Imelda (voiced by Mireya Mendoza), a young aspiring writer living in 19th century Mexico and struggling to publish her stories.Meanwhile, in the Realm of Spooks, an alternative reality that’s home to all of the fictional characters Francisca has written, Herneval (Juan Pablo Monterrubio), a winged prince, must save his parents and his kingdom.

The creatures in this world live off of human fear, so they create our nightmares.Herneval crosses into the human w...