Spooks

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 world to bring Francisca with him to the Realm of Spooks, so that she can write new nightmares that actually scare people. Humans have become difficult to terrify. By this point, a frustrated Francisca has decided to change her name to Frankelda (a reference to “Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley, who inspired the character). Frankelda and Herneval sing of the relationship between fiction and reality. One can’t exist without the other.

Frankelda was first introduced as part of the 2021 series “Frankelda’s Book of Spooks,” which HBO Max commissioned. In the show, the heroine shares nightmarish tales alongside Herneval, who appears not as a prince but a sentient book. The film “I Am Frankelda” is a prequel that explains the relationship between these characters.

Last month, “I Am Frankelda” screened at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, where Guillermo del Toro moderated the post-screening Q&A. A longtime mentor of the Ambriz brothers, Del Toro first supported them by donating to a Kickstarter campaign to finance their ambitious 2016 short film inspired by cubist art, “Revoltoso,” about a one-eyed boar living during the Mexican Revolution.

“In that moment, it was incredibly validating to realize that if Guillermo liked what we were doing, then it made sense to keep on doing it,” Roy said.

Two years apart in age, Roy and Arturo both studied filmmaking at the Centro, a university in Mexico City. Yet directing together wasn’t always the plan.

“I said, ‘We have to co-direct,’ because the situation naturally lent itself for me, being the older one, to take on the role of director while Roy would serve as production designer. But at a certain point, I realized that the hierarchy was wrong, and that if we wanted something sustainable for the rest of our lives, it had to be a 50/50 split between us. And I mean, 50/50, Roy!” said Arturo, playfully chastising his younger brother.

“It’s more like 60/40, with me having 60% of the power,” Roy added laughing.

In 2011, not long after graduating, Arturo found himself ridden with anxiety. Over the course of his education, he’d focused on artistic excellence but hadn’t much thought about how to actually make a living out of his and his brother’s shared passion. That’s when he decided they should create their own studio, Cinema Fantasma, so as to have control of the projects they took on. Their productions for hire include the Adult Swim show “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads,” which was produced entirely at their company in Mexico City.

“It’s been very difficult because we are filmmakers by vocation, but we are businesspeople by necessity,” said Arturo. “Developing that side of things has been the hardest part, but both are indispensable.”

To wrap up the “Frankelda” series, HBO Max requested a 30-minute special. Instead of accepting that offer, Roy suggested they use the proposed budget allocated to partially fund a full-length feature film. HBO Max agreed with the caveat that the brothers would have to come up with the rest of the money needed on their own.

To finance “I Am Frankelda,” Roy and Arturo mortgaged two homes. They are losing one of them to pay off their debts, so it helps that their dream of animation is a family affair. Their parents are executive producers on “Frankelda”; Roy’s wife, Ana Coronilla, worked as production designer; and Arturo’s spouse, Irene Melis, as a director of photography.

That “I Am Frankelda” is a musical is due in great part to Roy’s love of musical theater.

“At first, Arturo wasn’t sure, but using my 60% share of the power, I convinced him that it should be a musical,” Roy said. Yet it’s Arturo who wrote the lyrics to musical numbers. Each track starts as a poem that composer Kevin Smithers transformed into songs.

A fantastical stop-motion musical period piece, “I Am Frankelda” is far from an easy sell, and that’s what makes its existence all the more astonishing. The Ambriz brothers’ creative pursuit of the unpopular and the unfeasible has bonded them with Del Toro.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, pictured, interviewed “I Am Frankelda” directors Roy and Arturo Ambriz on May 30 during the film’s screening at the TCL Chinese Theatre as part of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival.

(Jill Connelly / For De Los)

“He is our most important mentor and the person we admire most in the world, and we also share many of the same interests,” Arturo explained. “That’s why when we saw ‘Pan’s Labyrinth,’ it was like when the glass slipper fits Cinderella. It was exactly what we loved: monsters, war, the cruelty of the human spirit, fairies and period settings.”

“Did you just call yourself Cinderella?” Roy interjected with the mischievous smirk typical of a younger brother trying to ruffle some feathers.

“Yes!” Arturo said quietly but without hesitation.

Every time they hear Del Toro speak about his interests, the Ambriz brothers discover a new well of references and “cultural protein,” from authors to painters.

“Guillermo is someone who actively champions the work of others, which I believe is the right way for an artist to be,” Arturo said.

When they finished “I Am Frankelda,” the brothers sent it to Del Toro, eager to hear his thoughts. As soon as he watched it, Del Toro called them.

“We spoke with him for hours, and he told us everything he saw, obviously with great tact, sharing both the good and the not-so-good,” Roy recalled. “But most importantly, he kept telling us that we had created something unprecedented. He insisted that we would pull through, even though we had ended up with a lot of debt.”

The version of “I Am Frankelda” that premiered at film festivals in 2025 is not the same one that will be available on Netflix. Based on Del Toro’s thorough feedback, the filmmakers recut the film and even animated new scenes. They playfully refer to this new cut that audiences will see globally as “The Grandfather Cut,” to honor Del Toro’s influence.

That “I Am Frankelda” was picked for distribution by Netflix is also Del Toro’s doing, the brothers said. It was the veteran director who suggested the film to the streaming company.

“I Am Frankelda” debuted in Mexico last October to an incredible reception, in part thanks to the fandom the characters had amassed via the episodic series.

“We receive fan art and fan fiction every day. People send us photos cosplaying the characters or of their ‘Frankelda’-themed quinceañeras. We’ve even bought bootleg merch at Mexican markets and on Temu or AliExpress too,” Roy said.

“We’ve bought ‘Frankelda’ socks from there that are of terrible quality, but all the more beautiful because of their bad quality,” he added.

“Of course, there are haters, too, but a large segment of the audience really identified with Frankelda as someone who perseveres, as someone who refuses to let her detractors hold her back. It’s been really beautiful watching that fandom grow,” Arturo said.

Another conviction where they align with Del Toro is their disinterest in engaging with artificial intelligence.

“AI is the antithesis of stop-motion. We’re not even remotely interested in it, because we do stop-motion to enjoy the artistic processes,” Roy said. “We created the studio for painting, drawing, sculpting and writing. Whatever happens with AI doesn’t really matter to us.”

Their second feature, “The Ballad of the Phoenix,” a medieval fantasy, is already in the works.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? player who scooped £500,000 explains how it will make a huge difference to their lives after tough times

Andrew Fanko missed out on the chance to take the jackpot on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? – but insisted his £500,000 prize had still saved his family financially.

The 44-year-old and his wife Frankie, who live in Market Harborough in Leicestershire with their six-year-old daughter, both work as translators. Andrew admitted work has been thin on the ground recently, as AI was putting them out of business, putting him under further pressure on him to do well on the show.

He made it to the million pound question but decided against answering it as he couldn’t be certain – and if he had gone with the ITV audience he would have been WRONG. It still meant he walked away with half a million pounds and played one of the best games in the show’s history.

Asked how the money will change his life, Andrew said: “It’s come at a really, really lovely time. First because our work has been kind of thrown under the bus a bit in the last few years because of AI. We are both translators and the freelance translation market has pretty much died to death in the last five to 10 years so although I’m lucky enough to have an in-house position at the moment, I don’t know how long that’s going to last, and Frankie’s work has dried up quite a lot so this will really make a huge difference to us.

“If either of us want to retrain or anything like that, it gives us the chance to be able to do that and I don’t think early retirement is a possibility, but it certainly makes our lives a lot easier.

“We genuinely were getting pretty concerned about the work situation. It was getting pretty stressful. Knowing that it is gonna come in fairly soon has been absolutely massive for us. It’s made a huge difference. We both feel a lot lighter, a lot more positive.”

Andrew sailed through the ITV show until hesitating on Question 12 for £125,000 about which cell type does not have a nucleus. He phoned his friend Jonathan who was 60 percent sure it is bacteria, and after using his 50-50 went with this correct answer.

He stumbled again on a question 14 for £500,000 about which character is killed in Murder on the Orient Express. He tried to get help from host Jeremy Clarkson but when that failed, correctly guessed Sam Ratchett.

His final question for £1 million was to name which one out of the four people named was an EGOT winner, meaning having scooped four different arts prizes including an Emmy and an Oscar.

He didn’t know the answer and asked the audience but the majority of them thought it was Bette Midler. After taking the £500,000 and not answering, Andrew was told the correct answer was Andrew Loyd Webber.

Reflecting on missing out on the big prize, Andrew said: “I’m fine with it. Honestly. The only way I wouldn’t have been fine with just missing out is if I had known the answer to the million pound question and not gone for it, but I just didn’t know it. So it is the best of all worlds really because I’ve been able to win a really life changing sum of money, genuinely life changing, and I know I couldn’t have done any better. So yeah, I have no regrets at all.

“The main pressure I felt was on the half a million pound question. So the Agatha Christie question, Frankie(wife) is a massive Agatha Christie fan. So I was like I could feel the eyes kind of burning into the back of my head. I knew that she would know it in a heartbeat. But I had to think about it, quite a lot before I was confident enough to go for it.”

Andrew and his wife are both big quiz fans and he has previously been on MasterMind, 15-1, Only Connect, and Brain of Britain. The couple also won on Eggheads with two friends, taking a £33,000 prize between them.

His big win has not put him off having a go at other TV quizzes.

He revealed: “I probably will do stuff in the future. Just because I absolutely love it. It might be harder to get on now, I guess, but you know… Mastermind. I got to the semi final four years ago and I still have ambitions to do well on Mastermind.. perhaps not immediately because I do want to take a little break from it, but yeah, I think Mastermind in the future is the one that I want another crack at. So the last time I did Britain at the Winter Olympics and African World Heritage sites.. so quite a range. I’d maybe do something like the TV show Spooks or perhaps something to do with Liverpool Football Club, although that’s been done loads of times. Something else sporty, I think.”

Now the episode has aired his long wait for the money is now almost over, having filmed the show last year, and once paid he will take his daughter Jemima to Disneyland and to buy his wife a new car.

He speaks French, Italian and Spanish but the first holiday they take will actually be a cruise to the Norwegian fjords with extended family.

Andrew said: “I wasn’t really nervous in the chair itself. I enjoyed it. I love answering quiz questions and it is what I spend most of my time doing. But the actual win with the lights and Jeremy and the audience and everything.. you do sort of lose a bit of perspective of where you are.

“I would say, the biggest tip I’ve got is probably to practise the fastest figure first – because that’s the key. I think once you get in the chair, that’s the great thing about Millionaire and the format is that once you get in the chair, anyone can win a huge amount of money because I don’t think they ever ask you sort of really, really genuinely very hard questions.

“It’s just such a wide range of things that that’s what makes it hard to progress quite a long way, but they can just fall for you. “But I would definitely practise faster than the first at home before you go and also while you’re practising in ‘the millionaire’s row’ where you sit before you go on, you get a chance to sort of get your fingers ready and practise on.”

Last month viewers saw Roman Dubowski win £1million in the opening episode of the series. He told the Mirror he celebrated with a cup of tea after he correctly answered that a Bass Ale logo appeared in the novel ‘Ulysses’ and paintings by Picasso and Manet.

There have been a total of seven winners of the £1million in the UK since the show began in 1998. Clarkson replaced Chris Tarrant as the host when the show returned in 2018 after a four year break.

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