More than four years after The Ballad of the Phoenix caught our attention at Annecy’s 2022 MIFA feature pitches, celebrated Mexican filmmakers Roy and Arturo Ambriz are taking the stop-motion fantasy to the Venice Gap-Financing Market.
In an article announcing the appearance, published by Variety from Venice, the brothers said they have been developing the project for more than a decade, pausing work when they were tapped to make the Cartoon Network Latin America and HBO Max series Frankelda’s Book of Spooks. That production eventually spawned their feature debut, I Am Frankelda, which became a theatrical hit in Mexico before reaching international audiences on Netflix.
The Ballad of the Phoenix follows Virian, a fire-wielding goblin princess who discovers that her dying father has been stealing souls in pursuit of immortality. After fleeing with the Phoenix, her spiritual guide and her father’s greatest enemy, she embarks on an alchemical journey and must choose between saving him and freeing his kingdom from his rule.
Through Virian, the filmmakers said they are exploring “responsibility, grief, the passage of time, and the emotional complexity of family bonds,” describing her strength as internal and transformative rather than traditionally heroic.
As with Frankelda, the Ambriz brothers want the film’s Mexican identity to extend beyond its visual design, informing the characters’ relationships and the ways they cook, speak, and dance.
Guillermo del Toro, a longtime mentor to the filmmakers, encouraged them not to play it safe after their first feature. According to Roy Ambriz, his advice came with a simple suggestion: “You have to think bigger.”
The Ambriz brothers are producing the film through Cinema Fantasma, alongside Andrea Toca, Rafael Ley, and Mario Savino of Woo Films and Marta Hernaiz Pidal of Cine Vendaval.
