I AM FRANKELDA

Roy & Arturo Ambriz are Mexican writers, directors, and producers. They founded Cinema Fantasma, a leading stop-motion animation studio based in Mexico City. They wrote and directed the stop-motion medium-length film Revoltoso and the series Frankelda’s Book of Spooks.

An absolutely fantastic journey through time
curated by Giulietta Fara

There are several anniversaries to celebrate this year. Therefore, we travelled with a super time machine and picked a few masterpieces of animation cinema. From the sweet Moomins created by Tove Jansson – who are now 80 years old – to the daring West & Soda directed by Bruno Bozzetto – which turns 60 this year – our five-year-old Circus offers recent masterpieces as well as workshops to learn to make films, the film-treasure hunt, and a children’s award. Five days of leaps through time – paraphrasing a wonderful film by Mamoru Hosoda – to discover that animated film is truly a universal language that can take us into different eras and stories. PFF Circus opens with the most iconic characters of Finnish literature in Xavier Picard’s, Hanna Hemilä’s film Moomins on the Riviera: an adventure in the frivolous and insidious world of Riviera, where the family of funny, big-nosed creatures must strive to stay united. Bruno Bozzetto, instead, takes us into the world of cowboys, a somewhat unhinged Wild West populated by absolute characters like “the evil one,” Clementine, and more ironically-nuanced figures such as the lead, the gunman Johnny. Sixty years from its initial release, the film has retained its visual impact, synthesis, and scathing irony. Audiences of all ages are still mesmerised by this animated Spaghetti Western, which appears to have foreshadowed Sergio Leone’s films. Two films, two anniversaries, that share the same simple, clean, two-dimensional, and dynamic style. The surprise of 2025 is Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow. Already released theatrically in Italy, it will also be screened at Circus in recognition of its quality, which has already been acknowledged with an Academy Award for Best Animated Film. A poem without dialogues to reflect on our world and climate change, it was effortlessly created using computer-aided 3D animation, that is, without showing off the hyperrealist potential of CGI. Flow, instead, tiptoes into our consciences. Present-day animation is represented by two Italian premieres. On the one hand, Arturo Ambriz’s and Roy Ambriz’s I am Frankelda, a horror with a female twist and the first Mexican stop-motion feature film. On the other hand, Patrick Raats’ and Sarah Sutter’s Benjamin Bat, the animated adaptation of a Dutch folktale and an equally nocturnal story - populated by bats. Like every year, besides offering many screenings Circus will invite young viewers to ‘put a finger in the pie’ and create short animations with the help of Italian experts. Stefano Tambellini and Studio Panebarco will lead two workshops, one on stop motion, the other on cut-out animation. Last, a tour of Pesaro in search of cinematic clues and a treasure, alongside an Award chosen by the children, will bring an initiation film journey to a close in the town that hosts the Pesaro Film Festival Circus. Full steam ahead, all aboard! Here we go!