I Am Frankelda Reminded Me Why I Love Stop-Motion Animation
*And Why We Need to Keep Talking About It!
The first stop-motion animation I remember watching was Wallace & Gromit on a wheeled in TV cart during a snowy day in first grade (shout out to my first grade teacher). I was mesmerized by the antics of Wallace and Gromit but more so by how everything in the film looked so ALIVE. Due to this chance encounter, I’ve always had a fondness for art created by people’s bare hands (or bear hands haha ʕ•͡•ʔ) because of the depth and textures that remind you that the work is inherently human. There may be flaws of course, but that makes it more genuine and real. Over the years I would devour any stop-motion animations I could find, I even attempted to make some of my own, sometimes even for school assignments! Before anyone asks, yes, I have seen the Paddington stop motion television series and found it captured that feeling of a child playing with their toys so well with Paddington being a plush bear! ʕ๑•ᴥ•๑ʔ
Earlier this month, I made sure to spend an evening watching a film I had been dying to check out—I Am Frankelda (2025) which is considered Mexico’s first independently made stop-motion film and a prequel to a television series for Cartoon Network Latin America. I had been looking forward to seeing the final film after hearing the initial announcement and waited eagerly for the day that the film was available for me to load up and watch! And boy howdy, I was extremely satisfied with the final product (what in the Mary Shelly inspo)! The story arcs of Francisca Imelda and Prince Herneval being intrinsically intertwined due to one creating the other, the gothic musical styling with the songs accompanying the story seamlessly, and the stop-motion animation itself being incredibly detailed while including a variety of animation elements… The entire film was breathtaking and filled my heart with so much joy I can only hope others appreciate the film as much as I did. And did I mention Prince Herneval? Since watching the film I have devoured every concept art I could find, watched the behind the scenes on repeat and lurked the fanart tags while kicking my feet and twirling my hair in absolute delight. If you are reading this blog entry, I hope you take some time to watch I Am Frankelda (preferably in the original Spanish), see the magic that was crafted with bare hands and truly appreciate the demonstration of what the human spirit can do!
As I have passionately recommended I Am Frankelda to anyone and everyone who would listen, I found myself beginning to wonder if we will be seeing more stop-motion animation in our collective future. Wildwood from Laika Studios is expected to release October 23rd, 2026 and while the film community has been buzzing for it the general public seems… Uninterested. I dislike bringing up how there has been a move to 3D animated stop motion as it occurred purely due to the shift from 2D to 3D animation as a whole industry wide during my youth leading to a sense of sameness (though I wish we'd return to 2D or continue the 2.5D animation that has changed the feel of the medium or both). I would be ignorant not to point out how unfortunately AI has scraped many stop-motion films to generate soulless husks and real stop-motion artists have been unfairly tagged as AI by many detection tools (ew). Despite the above factors, I think those of us passionate about the art of stop-motion need to keep pushing our wholehearted love for it wherever we can. I’m not saying you need to go and form a whole studio dedicated to the art (though cheers to you Guillermo del Toro for doing so, I will always see your stuff): share your own stop-motion animations even if they are a bit scuffed, throw a link to an animation student’s stop-motion in your group chat, see if your community has a stop-motion group, yell from the rooftops your love for stop-motion, and show up in droves to the theatres when a stop-motion film is theatrically released.
In order to keep any form of art alive, you need to be passionately loud about it-So get loud!