I Am Frankelda debuted on June 12 as the first feature film produced entirely in stop-motion animation in Mexico, and it arrived with enough attention to qualify as a genuine cultural event rather than just a niche release. The film is an animated musical, running roughly 90 minutes, with a visual style built entirely through handcrafted sets and puppet animation rather than digital tools.

The project has been in development for several years at a Mexican studio that specialised in short-form stop-motion work before scaling up to a feature. The production required building hundreds of individual puppets, dozens of physical sets, and a frame-by-frame shooting schedule that took the team more than three years to complete. Stop-motion at feature length is one of the most labour-intensive production processes in animation, which is why so few studios attempt it.

The story follows Frankelda, a young girl who discovers she can speak to objects that have been forgotten or discarded. The film draws on Mexican folk art traditions and uses a colour palette influenced by textile and ceramic craft rather than the more familiar digital animation aesthetic. Critics who attended early screenings drew comparisons to Laika Entertainment’s work, the Oregon studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings.

I Am Frankelda is currently in limited release in Mexico and select international markets. Streaming rights have not been publicly announced, though distribution interest has been reported from several major platforms following positive reception at film festivals earlier in 2026.

For the stop-motion animation community, the film’s completion and release represents proof that feature-length hand-crafted animation can still emerge from studios outside the established handful. It may not reach mass audiences immediately, but the critical buzz is real.