Tangles, Leah Nelson’s animated feature about a young woman coping with her mother’s dementia, has won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature at the ninth Animation Is Film Festival. Louis Clichy’s Iron Boy received the Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize and the Features Audience Award, while Don Hertzfeldt’s Paper Trail won the Shorts Jury Grand Prize. Anna Mantzaris’ Please took home the Shorts Special Jury Prize.
The festival, held from October 16 to 19 in Hollywood, celebrated animated features and short films across a competitive programme that included nine feature films and 18 shorts.
Tangles is a 2D black-and-white animated dramedy adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s autobiographical graphic novel. The film explores the impact of early-onset dementia on a family through the perspective of a young woman confronting her mother’s condition. It premiered as a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film features a voice cast led by Abbi Jacobson, alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Beanie Feldstein and Seth Rogen. Its restrained monochromatic visuals and personal subject matter were central to the features jury’s appreciation of the film.
The jury praised the film’s fluid 2D animation and its use of stark monochrome imagery to tell the story of a family affected by dementia. It also commended Nelson and the voice cast for remaining faithful to Leavitt’s graphic novel, describing the film’s treatment of a serious and painful subject as beautiful, honest and gentle.
Tangles has secured a United States distribution deal with Independent Film Company. The film is scheduled for an Oscar-qualifying release on November 27, followed by a limited theatrical rollout on January 15 and a nationwide release on January 22.
Clichy’s Iron Boy, a French coming-of-age drama that premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, received the Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize. The award honours Fumi Kitahara, a publicist and supporter of Animation Is Film who died in 2025. The film also won the Features Audience Award, which is decided by festival attendees.
Iron Boy follows a young boy growing up in rural France as he struggles against the restrictions of his home life and the metal corset he must wear throughout the day to address his spinal condition. The story draws on Clichy’s own memories of growing up in rural France and explores the difficulties of childhood, family relationships and the constraints placed on the protagonist.
The jury described Iron Boy as “pure beauty from the medium we all love”, highlighting its watercolour-like imagery and Chinese ink-brush-inspired visual style. It also praised the film’s depiction of a strained father-and-son relationship.
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Iron Boy for North America and several international territories. The film is scheduled for a qualifying release in December, followed by a North American theatrical release on January 22.
In the shorts competition, Hertzfeldt’s Paper Trail won the Shorts Jury Grand Prize. The jury unanimously recognised the film’s distinctive visual language, describing it as unique and profoundly moving. Its members also noted that the film had stayed with them after viewing.
Mantzaris’ Please received the Shorts Special Jury Prize. The jury praised its whimsy, clever characterisation and felt-puppet stop-motion animation, describing it as a funny and tender film that captures the absurdity of human experience and the longing for connection.
The features jury comprised producer Jinko Gotoh, Tonko House co-founder Dice Tsutsumi and Animation Magazine editor-in-chief Ramin Zahed. The shorts jury included animator Elizabeth Ito, animation historian Jerry Beck, and actor and director Rachel House.
Alongside the competition programme, the festival presented several special screenings and industry events. It hosted the first theatrical screening of Dana Terrace’s Knights of Guinevere and a special screening of Travis Knight’s Wildwood. The programme also included a behind-the-scenes presentation focused on Disney’s Hexed.
On Sunday, The Hollywood Reporter hosted the first live edition of its Animation Roundtable. The event featured Bill Hader, Travis Knight, Louis Clichy, Leah Nelson, Joel Crawford, Phuong Mai Nguyen and Fawn Veerasunthorn.
Festival director Matt Kaszanek also emphasised the importance of recognising animation as a diverse medium rather than treating it as a single, undifferentiated category. He said Animation Is Film was “also an argument that animated films should never be lumped together under the broad heading ‘Animation.’”
The 2026 Animation Is Film Festival took place at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood and the David Geffen Theater at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Its awards recognised a range of approaches to animated storytelling, from the intimate family drama of Tangles and the coming-of-age themes of Iron Boy to the distinctive visual styles of the winning short films.
The 2026 Animation Is Film Festival Winners
- Grand Jury Prize: Tangles — Leah Nelson
- Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize: Iron Boy — Louis Clichy
- Features Audience Award: Iron Boy — Louis Clichy
- Shorts Jury Grand Prize: Paper Trail — Don Hertzfeldt
- Shorts Special Jury Prize: Please — Anna Mantzaris