“Tangles” Wins Grand Jury Prize at Animation Is Film Festival

By Grace Kim

“Tangles,” directed by Leah Nelson, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 9th annual Animation Is Film Festival. Animation Is Film describes the two-dimensional (2-D) film as following a family affected by its mother’s battle with dementia.

The features jury praised the film’s monochrome framing (a sharply limited visual palette) and its treatment of a painful subject. It said: “We loved the fluid 2D animation which uses a stark monochrome framing to bring to life the personal story of a family impacted by the mother’s battle with dementia,” the jury wrote.

The features jury also credited Nelson’s direction and voice cast for remaining faithful to Sarah Leavitt’s graphic novel, an illustrated book-length narrative. Its assessment covered both the painful subject and the film’s handling of it.

The features jury continued: “We were especially impressed with how director Leah Nelson and her perfectly cast voice team were able to remain faithful to Sarah Leavitt’s graphic novel which tackles a serious, painful subject with great beauty, honesty, and a gentle touch and also offers a great flashback to 1990s-era San Francisco.” The judgment joined form and feeling.

Louis Clichy’s “Iron Boy” received the Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize and the Features Audience Award. The honor commemorates Fumi Kitahara, a publicist and champion of the festival’s mission, who died in 2025.

The jury’s praise covered form, personal history and character. It said: “’Iron Boy’ is pure beauty from the medium we all love. Louis Clichy’s ‘Iron Boy’ was an easy stand-out thanks to its beautifully crafted water-color-like and Chinese ink-brush style visuals and how it told a story inspired by the director’s own memories of growing up in rural France.”

The features jury continued: “We also admired the way Clichy conveyed a world of emotions with his impressionistic visuals as well as his depiction of a young boy’s personal struggles with a physical handicap and the heartfelt portrayal of a strained father-and-son relationship which avoids sentimentality and the pitfalls of a traditional comic-of-age story.” It praised emotional range without sentimentality.

Don Hertzfeldt’s “Paper Trail” won the Shorts Jury Grand Prize. The jury called it “unique and profoundly moving.”

Anna Mantzaris’s “Please” won the Shorts Special Jury Prize. The jury called it “a wonderfully made, funny, and tender film that captures the absurdity and very human longing for connection.”

What do the awards tell audiences?

The results distinguish jury preference from audience response in the 2026 feature competition. “Tangles” took the top jury prize, while “Iron Boy” won both a special jury prize and the Features Audience Award. In the shorts field, “Paper Trail” and “Please” took the two jury awards.

The 2026 feature competition

Animation Is Film’s feature competition included 9 titles. The lineup paired each film with its director or directors:

• “Cherry and Virgin” — Masanao Kawajiri
• “Ghost — End of Night” — Shingo Natsume
• “Iron Boy” — Louis Clichy
• “Jim Queen” — Nicolas Athané and Marco Nguyen
• “Julián” — Louise Bagnall
• “O Filho Da Puta (Son of a Bitch)” — Otto Guerra, Érica Maradona, Tânia Anaya and Sávio Leite
• “Tangles” — Leah Nelson
• “The Violinist” — Ervin Han and Raúl García
• “Viva Carmen!” — Sébastien Laudenbach

The 2026 shorts competition

Animation Is Film’s shorts competition included 18 films. Its roster comprised:

• “Acid City” — Jack Wedge and Will Freudenheim
• “Because Today is a Saturday” — Alice Eça Guimarães
• “Blessed” — Birute Sodeikaite
• “Core Dump” — Alona Rodeh
• “Daughters of the Late Colonel” — Elizabeth Hobbs
• “God is Shy” — Jocelyn Charles
• “Hag” — Anna Ginsburg
• “It’s Not a Phase Mom” — Nataël Renault, Tianhui Song, Anna Watson, Léa Mau-Glicenstein, Riley Cords and Reni Park
• “Living With a Visionary” — Stephen P. Neary
• “Paper Trail” — Don Hertzfeldt
• “Paradaïz” — Matea Radic
• “Please” — Anna Mantzaris
• “Saba” — Liron Topaz
• “Tuna Tartare” — Lena Greene
• “Ultra Strong” — Catherine Lepage
• “What We Leave Behind” — Jean-Sébastien Hamel and Alexandra Myotte
• “With Tapes and Toasts in the Car” — Kiana Naghshineh
• “Winter in March” — Natalia Mirzoyan

Beyond the competitions

Over 4 days, the festival’s program extended beyond the two juried competitions. It included:

• The first big-screen presentation of Dana Terrace’s “Knights of Guinevere”
• A special screening of Laika’s “Wildwood” with director Travis Knight
• A behind-the-scenes look at Disney’s “Hexed”
• A presentation of the work-in-progress “Clara and the Below,” an unfinished version

The announced results give “Iron Boy” two awards: the Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize and the Features Audience Award. “Tangles” holds the feature competition’s principal prize, while “Paper Trail” and “Please” took the shorts awards. For audiences, the practical distinction is clear: the top jury honor and the audience response went to different features.