Tangles Wins Top Prize at 2026 Animation Is Film Festival

Leah Nelson's Tangles won the Grand Jury Prize for best film at the 2026 Animation Is Film Festival, the festival's top honor, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The 9th edition of the festival ran Oct. 16-19 at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood and the David Geffen Theater at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Louis Clichy's Iron Boy took two prizes: the Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize and the Features Audience Award. The special jury prize is named for Fumi Kitahara, a publicist and Animation is Film champion who died last year.

In the shorts categories, Don Hertzfeldt's Paper Trail won the Shorts Jury Grand Prize and Anna Mantzaris's Please won the Shorts Special Jury Prize.

The festival also hosted the first theatrical screening of Dana Terrace's Knights of Guinevere and a special screening of Travis Knight's Wildwood. The Hollywood Reporter held its inaugural live Animation Roundtable at the festival on Sunday.

Festival circuit

Tangles, adapted from Sarah Leavitt's graphic novel, features voice performances from Abbi Jacobsen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Beanie Feldstein and Seth Rogen. It premiered as a special screening in Cannes, where Iron Boy also premiered in Un Certain Regard. Sony Pictures Classics acquired Iron Boy for North America and multiple international territories out of Cannes.