Hola Frida! is a Québécois film that is part of the programme for the Children’s International Film Festival 2025 (CHIFF 2025). It is an animated film about the childhood of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. We speak with André Kadi, one of the screenwriters and foreign producer, and Karine Vézina, director of photography, both from Du Coup Animation, co-producer of the film.
Your company Du Coup Animation has created the film Hola Frida! How long have the two of you worked together?
André: The two of us, it’s been 18 years. We worked together on video games before working together in animation and we opened Du Coup Animation 7 years ago.
So you know each other’s working style well.
André: Yes, Karine was director of photography on the Dounia films. And she’s been talking to me about Frida Kahlo for 18 years. So when we started working on a film about Frida, I thought we should do it together.
So it was your idea, Karine.
Karine: Actually, no, it was a project initiated by the district, by Tobo, and they asked us if we were interested, and of course we were. So that’s how it started. But it was really them who initiated it by buying the rights to Cara Carmina’s book.
Why did you both decide to work in the world of animated film?
Karine: I’ve loved animation for a long time. I studied it. I realised that I didn’t like animating, but I still love animation. So I do everything around it except animation. But it’s something that goes back quite a long way, strangely enough, to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. That’s a film with really impressive traditional animation that’s very fluid and creative. I thought it was fantastic at the time. I was in secondary school and that’s what made me want to do animation myself.
And you André ?
André: For me, it’s kind of the same thing. I was working in video games, but I wanted to be more involved in storytelling. I was a musician, so directing was something I really enjoyed. So directing plus music plus animation. In fact, animation is what allows us to tell the stories we want to tell. Here at the studios, we’re developing a science fiction film at the same time as a horror film and a children’s film. I think it really allows us to develop films while avoiding the film set aspect, which I find very cumbersome in traditional cinema.
So where did the idea come from to make a film for children about the childhood of Frida Kahlo like Hola Frida!?
André: It was really two desires. We had made Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo before, and Dounia in the Great White Country: a film that told the story of a young Syrian refugee on her journey to Canada, and the second film, her first two years in Canada. Then we wanted to tell other stories. So we have several stories we can tell.
But Frida came along with the book. We thought, well, maybe it’s time to tell this story. We just didn’t want to participate in the Frida Mania that’s already everywhere. There are already so many objects about her. So at first, we were a little reluctant, but then we went to meet the family in Mexico. And the family told us that nothing had been done about her youth, so we should feel free to talk about her because there are no films in Mexico, no animated films, so it would be good for children to see a little bit about where she came from.
When we spoke with them, they said that it’s not obvious to people that her father was German, that she had polio, that her mother was Zapotec. So go ahead and make a film as long as it’s done with respect. Throughout the process, they remained very close to us, especially her little niece Cristina Kahlo, who helped us a lot during the film.
Representation is important in the media for everyone, but especially for children. To what extent were you conscious of creating a space for Mexican culture and female creativity in the film?
Karine: That was definitely the most important thing. I think our priority, before making a film for children, was to talk about a female artist who had a significant importance in life, who managed to make her mark in the world of art history, at a time when women didn’t even have the right to vote. Frida didn’t have the right to vote for her entire life, except for the last year of her life. It was a difficult time for women. Women were only expected to be housewives, start a family and take care of the family.
So it’s impressive to see what she managed to achieve from Mexico, on top of all that. I think it’s interesting to pass this information on to children, to introduce them to this young woman. We can never have too many female role models, and for women around the world, for example, it was a really good excuse to talk about this and other topics, such as disabilities, bullying, and so on.
But of course, our priority was to introduce young people to an artist, a talented former artist.
André: Yes, because I think she remains very modern in her feminism, in her importance. This is a project that involved a lot of women. In fact, I’m pretty much the only man involved. The animation director is Marie-Michelle Laflamme, who is my partner at Du Coup. My co-producers are Laurence and Florence. In the pool of writers, there are five of us, four of whom are women. So it was really very, very important, on all levels. At Dandeloo, too, the film is driven by women.
And because it has everything, there’s Mexico at that time, which was very, very contrasting. When we were in Mexico City, it was love at first sight for the city, but also for its history and the living art that remained in the streets. So that’s important. When we had the premiere in Mexico City, at the Casa Azul, we showed the Mexican version of the film, presented by Cristina Kahlo. The first thing she said was: “You’ve made a film about Mexico and my family, not just about Frida, but about the whole atmosphere, about the fact that the Zapatistas were starting to arrive in the city. The fact that women were dressing in European style while others wanted to rediscover their pre-Hispanic roots. We tried to put all that in the film without it becoming too didactic, but still presenting everything at least a little bit.
Frida’s homosexuality, for example. We wanted to show all the facets of Frida, so even her homosexuality, for example, is shown by the mistress. At the time, when a woman didn’t want to get married, it was either because she wanted to continue her education or because she was a lesbian. She was forced to become either a nurse, a teacher or a schoolmistress because teachers were asked not to marry so that they could devote themselves to the children. So that’s why the teacher, we see her for a moment with her friend at the cemetery, and then we try to discreetly show that during that period, there was that too. And that’s probably why Frida said, ‘I’m going to go to university, I want to teach, I want to become a doctor.’ Yes, because she wanted to become a doctor, and because she wanted to educate herself. I also think it’s because she didn’t want to be trapped in a cage, have a husband and be forced to…
Karine: to be financially dependent on someone else. I think that she wanted to be independent so she could do things her way, without compromise.
And how closely does the film follow the book?
André:The book was really a starting point in the sense that it is a very, very short book. It’s just a few lines. And then there were a few facts about Frida being a painter. The interesting angle was that she was six years old when she contracted polio. So that’s what we found interesting, that was the starting point. Then we made a web series that was based on the book but developed into a 30-minute story, and then we moved on from that web series to redevelop it with new themes, bringing in La Muerte, bringing in the imaginary world, pushing the disability aspect much more, pushing the bullying aspect. So it was a multi-stage process. But we definitely strayed a lot from the story in the book because it’s much too short to make a film.
Films for children often avoid showing difficult things, such as illness and sadness. But you, on the other hand, don’t hesitate to show young Frida’s polio. Why was that important to you?
Karine: First of all, because it’s part of her story. I also think it’s the kind of message that Frida conveys in her life. And I think that’s what makes her so popular today, the fact that she suffered a lot. She had many miscarriages; not being able to have children was one of the tragedies of her life. Finally, her accident was a huge ordeal. I think it’s important to talk about it because it’s really part of who she is and it’s also part of her artistic work. You can see it in all her paintings, it’s very raw, let’s say.
In the sense that it’s part of her personality and part of her identity and who she was, I think. She was very genuine. I think she was very authentic. She was someone who accepted what happened and spoke about it openly. So I think we wanted to respect that aspect of Frida’s identity in the film as well.
André: Yes, especially since we make films for children. We already did that with Dounia, where we showed war and suffering. We showed a lot of things. We make them suitable for children in the sense that we remove enough content so that a child can be in the theatre with us watching. But for us, these are films where children need to be accompanied by a parent, an adult, someone older, a teacher, so that they can ask questions.
And we’ve seen this all over the world. We’ve shown the film everywhere and followed it closely. And we always see, when we sit at the back of the room and watch the children who are there with their parents and so on, that they ask a lot of questions, and sometimes they explain things to their parents too, saying, ‘Oh, Tchikita is dead.’ Then sometimes the parents ask a question that they, with their adult perspective, haven’t really noticed. Whereas the children understand everything, they understand everything, even this imaginary world that we wanted to create. That was very much Karine’s idea, the imaginary world that is present at the same time.
We really created the imaginary world with all of Frida’s paintings. We can see the vegetation, the animals, the issues, the problems, and on top of that, we brought in the fact that it’s her body in the sense that her spine is represented by this large column that breaks at the moment of the accident. There is her foot, which was diseased during polio, and her heart, which is important in Frida’s work. So we put all these parts there to represent the body, and when that world becomes cold, it means that La Muerte is approaching. And that’s where she drew her inspiration from, because she herself said, ‘I just painted what I saw in my head.’
So we said to ourselves, well, in this imaginary world that really existed for her, Frida really said, “When I was little, at the age of six, I had polio, I was alone, I was bored, so I went to draw a door in the mist. I went through that door and there I met a friend who, for years, I talked to and went into this imaginary world that was beautiful.” So we try to imagine it as if it were in that world that she drew all the marks that we find in her paintings after all that.
That friend looks like Frida. She has the same monobrow for example.
André: Yes, it is her, in fact. You will see towards the end that it leads to the painting of the two Fridas. So we end the confrontation, the important moment when she takes control of her life, when she decides to fight on her own. It’s the moment when we represent the two Fridas through these two characters in the imaginary world, and when her friend says to her, ‘From now on, you’re going to have to…’ Each passage into the imaginary world is a little bit of self-affirmation. At first, she learns to say to herself, ‘It doesn’t matter what other people think, but it’s important to find the strength within yourself to find the courage.’ Then at the end, it’s no, we’re going to stop helping you from now on, you don’t need anyone to live your life and paint your paintings. So each passage is a bit like a stage in Frida’s life.
And how did you find the balance between lightness and depth in your portrait?
André: I think it was by talking a lot with everyone. I had a big part in the script. Karine too, at the beginning, on the structure. We didn’t hesitate to rewrite the script a lot. We wanted each sequence to be perfect, to embody something that was both light-hearted. We wanted the bond with the little sister to be important, to show that this bond changes, that the little sister goes from being very carefree to suddenly realising that her big sister is ill. We rewrote the sequences: lots of people contributed little anecdotes, things we heard in Mexico, things we said to each other that we thought could add a lot.
So, whenever there was something that could add lightness, but that could also have a historical context, for example, something really real. We tried to make something out of it. We cut things out, we put things back in, and then we tried to come up with a script that was well balanced in that regard, knowing that all the anecdotes in the film were read in the letters, even the roller skates. It seems anachronistic, but even the roller skates were really something she did with her father. Her father even made a small wooden ramp. But we didn’t put that in the film. We thought it seemed too modern, people wouldn’t even believe us. But there was even a small ramp. They used to practise together in the canals of Xochimilco, in all the little anecdotes. These are things we read in her letters or in her notebook.
Karine: The series was written before we animated it. In fact, we made the series in the sense that we produced the animated sets, but the writing had been done beforehand. We weren’t involved at all in writing the series. The series was much more childish than the film we wanted to make. So we tinkered with it to try to raise the age of the audience a little bit.
André: The target
Karine: The target that we wanted to have. In fact, we added more seriousness to the series than it originally had. For the film, we expanded on that, but it was difficult to mix a part that wasn’t written by us with the part that was written mainly by André. André wrote most of the film. And then, from one state to another, it was quite difficult. That was the biggest challenge of the film.
André: It allowed us to take the themes further. For example, in the series, there’s a moment when there’s bullying. And then, at the end, she just decides she doesn’t care, she’s having fun with her friends. We added the discussions with the parents who were there to explain, yes, that’s right, Frida, what you did was good, to help the child understand that they don’t have to take bullying seriously, but that they still need to talk to an adult about it. When there was the race with the little boy who isn’t nice in the series, it’s just that he wasn’t nice, so she beat him and we were happy. In the film, we added a backstory to explain that this little boy is like that because he has just lost his father.
That’s Raphael, right?
André: Yes, Raphael put pressure on himself to become the man of the family, even though his mother didn’t ask him to, but he said to her, ‘No, no, no, I’m the man of the family. I’m going to try to be tough and strong because my mother is taking care of the two little ones.’ Then it takes the whole film before he himself understands that he doesn’t have to go down that path. And then Frida constantly reaches out to him, until finally they become friends again. Because, again, there were debates within the team at the beginning. My co-producer said, ‘But why are we giving this kid so much screen time when he’s not nice?’ I said, ‘Yes, but in almost all nastiness, there is suffering. So it’s definitely also a way of explaining bullying.’ It defuses a lot when you try to understand what’s going on with a child. And in nine out of ten cases, not even 49 out of 50, it’s because he himself is suffering a lot, so he projects that suffering onto others. So we tried, as you said, even though it’s a children’s film, to bring the themes to a level of complexity that we find interesting.
Do you think that Hola Frida! is part of a broader movement of telling true stories through children’s animation?
André: We find it interesting because it brings a lot to the table. We are currently developing several films about painters, people who have made their mark on history, some of whom have not managed to achieve the same status as Frida. Frida was forgotten for years and years. And then she came back. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she came back into fashion and it all started again. But there are many other artists, particularly in the Maghreb.
So, for example, we are currently developing a story about an Algerian painter who left for Paris at a very young age and became the muse and inspiration of Matisse and Picasso because she had an incredible style and used colours they had never seen before, with pigments they had never encountered. She was sixteen years old. She was an incredible woman. Then she eventually returned to Algeria. She married a man 30 years her senior and fell back into complete anonymity. Her paintings were distributed everywhere. So, for example, this film will also be interesting because it’s about someone who had a trajectory a bit like Frida, who is also an incredible woman, but whom history has not remembered.
And there are many, many women like that. So yes, as long as we can find inspiring stories to tell, I think we’ll do it. We tell lots of other stories in lots of other films too, but sometimes the targets are not the same.
We’ve just finished a film called ‘Allah n’est pas obligé’ (Allah is not obliged). I’m not the director this time, neither is Karine. We made 50% of the film, but it was made in France, so it’s a co-production. It’s about child soldiers, but it’s rated 16 and over, or even 18 and over, because we really show the shootings, we show the bullets, we show the blood. We wouldn’t have been able to make this film suitable for children. It’s more about explaining to adults how ten-year-old children can end up with a machine gun in their hands, pumped full of LSD until they are capable of killing people without even realising the gravity of what they are doing.
Karine: So animation allows us to, I wouldn’t say play down the drama, but let’s say that seeing children shooting people in real life would be even worse. So animation creates a distance between the viewer and the action, which is perhaps more comfortable for the viewer. It’s less harsh than seeing it in real life, which I think would be more difficult for the viewer.
André, you said that the latter was made partly in France, and I believe this one, Hola Frida! was too. Is it a little bit, or is it more a question of funding?
André: It’s because Allah is not obliged is a film that was started in France, and we got involved later. So we made 50% of the film. But the director is in France, so we’re much less involved, even though we’re very happy to have participated.
Whereas Dounia and Frida are films that we initiated in Canada. They were co-produced with France, but France’s contribution was less significant. The music was done in France by Laetitia, who did an incredible job. Olivia Ruiz also provided the voice for the adult Frida. And she wrote the theme song. So yes, France’s involvement was mainly in terms of music and sound. They were with us from the beginning, whether it was Haut et Court, our co-producer—we did writing sessions toghther, and they came to Mexico with us. It’s really a project where everyone participated, where there was a great team synergy.
I was wondering because I saw that you are the foreign producer, I think it’s written on the Unifrance website. So I was wondering what that actually means, if you’re based in Canada?
André: We’re 90% Canada, 10% France on this project. So it’s basically a Canadian project. But for us, Haut et Court was very important because they distributed Dounia, which we had made before, even though they weren’t co-producers. But they really took it on as if it were their own; as if they had adopted our little Dounia and brought her to the cinema. So this time, we wanted to get them on board from the start in the co-production.
The film highlights the healing power of imagination, creativity and art. Have either of you experienced this?
Karine: I know I have. My background is very typical. To start with, I’m definitely going to say yes because I went to college, got a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in visual arts and cinema. I really come from the world of visual arts. When I was young, I didn’t have many friends in primary school, I wasn’t very popular, so I drew a lot as a way of escaping. And it also allowed me to reveal myself to others as someone who had a certain value because in my art classes and drawing competitions at school, I won drawing competitions. So it was a way for me to feel good about myself when I was young.
What about you, André?
André: Yeah, well, for me, it was through sports and lots of other things. But actually, I think Karine is the one who had that experience more than me. But Olivia Ruiz, for example, who is very well known in France, who is a singer and novelist, when we did the promotional tour for the film, she said that when she was little, also at the age of six, she was quite intimidated. Then in her head, she was always asking herself, ‘OK, what would Frida Kahlo have done in my place to give herself strength?’ And then she too, through song and music, went from being intimidated to gaining confidence in herself.
So I think there are a lot of people in the film who have been through that, but above all, Frida has inspired them. It’s crazy how many people we’ve talked to all over the world who say, ‘I have a very, very close relationship with Frida!’ But I don’t know if it’s because of the letters. I don’t know why but people really feel like they knew her, Frida.
Karine: But since she talked about herself a lot all the time and we have access to all her letters—she wrote a lot, so we found a lot of them. And then, many of them have been published. Since She talked about many, many problems she had, both marital and miscarriages, illness, pain…
But everyone has their own reason for loving Frida. And it’s not the same for everyone. Often, what’s interesting and funny is that some people say, ‘Oh yes, I had that too when I was young, and at one point I was bedridden for six months.’ ‘My husband cheated on me too.’
Everyone has a different reason, which is interesting. And I think that’s why she’s so popular. I think she touches people because she suffered a lot, and she talked about it a lot, so it became like she democratised her pain. Everyone can relate to some part of that pain in some way.
How did your vision of the film evolve from the beginning of the project to the final version?
Karine: It was a gradual process. As we worked, we wrote something, and when we went to Mexico to visit, we saw the extent of Mexico’s incredibly rich cultural identity. In any case, coming from Quebec, I can tell you that we are about 1/100th of what is happening in Mexico. So there is a huge cultural identity. They have a lot of history, a lot of stories, a lot of legends. It’s a bottomless well of inspiration. I think at one point we went to visit Mexico for two weeks, and it was very inspiring.
André: Yes, it was during the Day of the Dead, so everything was beautiful, everything was decorated. And then we discovered this country, which is even more amazing. We were in Mexico City, in Coyoacán. And Mexico City is a city that scares people a little. Tourists tend to go to the waterfront, the seaside, not so much to Mexico City. It’s a city that doesn’t live for tourism, but simply lives. But it’s 22 million people, it’s very, very impressive.
That was the starting point, and after that it was really the team. We give the team a lot of space, so each person brings their own talent. Marie-Michelle, my partner in artistic direction, contributed a lot. Justine, who created the characters, for example when she did La Muerte, was a very interesting character. When Jade, who does the set design, started taking all the photos we brought back to create this universe. She worked a lot with Karine so that in terms of colours and lighting, we got what we had felt.
So the project really evolved as we went along. Then, when Laetitia came in for the music and Yann came in for the sound, they also brought their expertise to the table. They also brought a lot of their talent to ensure that the film would take up all that space.
How did you approach translating her world into animation without copying her works? So was it the photos from Mexico?
Karine: Actually, we started with the story, and then we looked at the story to see where we could introduce parts of her work in a way. We didn’t work backwards. I don’t think we said, ‘Let’s talk about her paintings.’ André wrote the story first and foremost. After that, we tried to see where we could show flashes of these paintings, little things, and then put central elements here and there. It’s not scientific either.
André: Yes, because we can’t show the paintings as they are, because the only painting we really show is Viva la Vida, which we see her starting and finishing at the end because it was her last painting. So we really wanted it to be the day she decided that that was it, it was over, she was going to stop painting. So it was really her last day as a painter, in any case. And she died two weeks later anyway. So that was the only real painting we included as such.
The others were really inspirations, giving them a narrative function. Because each of the paintings has a narrative function, we tried to understand ‘what is the explanation for the painting?’ The two Fridas, we read that she was referring to her imaginary friend and that she wanted to represent her two sides and all that. So we really built the story around that. When we took the broken column, for example, as in the painting, her spinal column that is broken and then held together by white bandages, we made it the central element of her imaginary world.
When she has her bus accident, her spinal column breaks, and at the end, with the red bandage, she manages to hold it together, she doesn’t repair it. We see that she manages to hold it together and it will hold together for her whole life, but it will barely hold together. For the red headbands, it’s the same thing. We started with the painting of her ancestors, where she puts red ribbons that go out to the family. So there, we did the whole story of the red ribbon in that painting.
So each time, we really took the explanation of the painting and tried to introduce that and how she might have lived and what made her want to paint them afterwards. So afterwards, there is obviously a small part of imagination on our part for that. But there are certain paintings that she described quite well in terms of what she wanted to represent in them.
How did you guide the animation team so that each image reflected your vision and the emotion of the story?
André: Well, that’s one of our big strengths at Du Coup, is that we have a studio where everyone is on site. The whole team is there every morning. So we’re working on several projects at the same time, and even sometimes we’re on our own. Karine was also there with us. Marie-Michelle is here, I’m here.
So since everyone’s on site, it’s a team we’ve chosen year after year. We know everyone’s strengths. That allows us to sit down with the team every morning and see who’s working on what. We know that if one day Jade and Justine are working on the imaginary world, or if the two Nicos are working on something else, we’ll be able to sit down with them every day. They ask us a lot of questions. They come up with suggestions.
Then, because it’s a job where everyone’s there, we can get up at any time and go and see even a bit of animation, a bit of a dance for example. Then we can correct very quickly, or we can very quickly ask questions like “What are you doing?” Then, if we see that they’re not going exactly where we need them to, we can talk to them about it. So that was really the best way for us to work, to have everyone on hand every morning, everyone there.
Karine: André went to present it in Morelia afterwards. But the film wasn’t quite finished yet. We got a lot of feedback from Mexicans who told us, “You don’t say it like that,” or “You know, we shake hands with merchants out of politeness; that’s how it’s done in our country.” So there were things we reworked afterwards. Comments from Mexicans who told us, “That’s how we do it.” “Be careful, that means this, you know.” We adapted, we made changes.
André: We had two months between the end of the screening in Morelia and Casa Azul and the release in France. We had about two months. So we really allowed ourselves two months to come back and readjust a lot of little things, tiny details, little things that people told us, as Karine said, for example, they told us that the Zapotecs shake hands while looking at each other. So if the mother is really Zapotec and if there are going to be Zapotec women, it would be normal for them to shake hands.
Then, when we do it sometimes in France or Belgium, people will say, “Well, it’s weird for two women to shake hands,” but for us it’s really important that everything is very authentic. So, in the end, we prefer that the gestures be real and authentic, and then have to explain them, rather than not including them so that people don’t understand. In the first one, for example, Maria, who was the author, explained to us, “Oh yes, but be careful, in Aleppo, merchants, for example, never say no like that, they say no with their nose.” So she gave us a lot of gestures that were really important to us because we wanted people to relive Aleppo before the war. So we did that, we tried to do the same thing for Frida’s Mexico.
What messages or values do you want to convey to young viewers through the film?
Karine: Definitely resilience is the main message of Frida. And obviously, the saving power of art is also one of the major themes in Frida’s life. I think those are the two main ones.
André: Yes, and then it’s about seeing the beauty in everything. In fact, she says it at the end of her narration—we read it in a letter: “Instead of focusing on what’s not working in life, saying, ‘Well, today my back hurts, you know. What’s more, they cut off her leg, poor thing, she focused mainly on each day. What’s happening today? Ah, the weather is nice, there’s a cool breeze that feels good. Today, I’m with my animals.”
So she relied heavily on the positive to paint what she wanted to paint, but above all to live each day for what it was. She never felt sorry for herself, and I think it’s very important for people to understand that.
Karine: I also think that authenticity is one of the messages she conveys a lot. The fact that she wasn’t part of any artistic movement, even though the Surrealists often wanted to bring her on board. But she always said, “I’m not a Surrealist, I don’t paint dreams, I just paint my reality, that’s all. It’s just me, it’s my life, and that’s all.” So that authenticity, too, I think, is something that’s very refreshing. It’s something that speaks volumes through her. I think it’s a very beautiful message for young people today, to be authentic and to respect themselves, to be themselves.
André: Not putting yourself in a box that isn’t you, telling yourself you have to be what people expect of you without wanting to claim ownership of it. That’s what I really liked about her, that she didn’t claim to be anything. She just said, “I dress the way I dress, I believe what I believe, if I want to have a monobrow, I’ll have a monobrow.” It’s her way of saying, “I’ll do what I want anyway.”
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We would like to thank André and Karine de Du Coup for this interview.
KEY INFO FOR HOLA FRIDA!
WHAT: The film Hola Frida! is part of the CHIFF (Children’s International Film Festival) program.
WHEN: Several screenings between July 5 and 20.
WHERE:
MELBOURNE: Cameo Cinemas, Belgrave; Classic Cinemas, Elsternwick; Lido Cinemas, Hawthorn.
SYDNEY: Ritz Cinemas, Randwick.
HOW: Purchase your tickets here
HOW MUCH: Ticket prices are as follows:
- Individual tickets $16.50
Valid for adults, children, seniors, and concession holders. - Member tickets $14.50
Maximum of two discounted tickets per member. Valid for all membership types. - Family pass $56
Two adults and two children or one adult and three children.
Read our article on films from France and the Francophonie at CHIFF
