9th Animation Is Film Festival Unveils Winners: Tangles Takes Grand Jury Prize
The 9th Animation Is Film Festival announced its award winners on October 22. The festival ran October 16-19 at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood and the David Geffen Theater at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California, with nine features and 18 shorts in competition. The festival is produced by GKIDS in partnership with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Variety.
The Grand Jury Prize for features went to Tangles, directed by Leah Nelson. The Canada-U.S. co-production, adapted from Sarah Leavitt's graphic novel of the same name, uses fluid 2D animation and a stark monochrome frame to tell the story of a family impacted by the mother's battle with dementia. The features jury was made up of producer Jinko Gotoh, Tonko House co-founder Dice Tsutsumi and Animation Magazine editor-in-chief Ramin Zahed.
French director Louis Clichy's coming-of-age feature Iron Boy won two awards: the Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize, named for the festival's publicist and champion Fumi Kitahara, who passed away in 2025, and the Features Audience Award. The film previously won a Special Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and three awards at Annecy.
The Shorts Jury Grand Prize went to Paper Trail by Don Hertzfeldt. The shorts jury — Elizabeth Ito, Jerry Beck and Rachel House — unanimously recognized the film's singular visual language and approach to narrative and form, calling it "unique and profoundly moving" and a film that stayed with them. Paper Trail won the Cristal for a Short Film at Annecy in June. The Shorts Special Jury Prize went to Please by Anna Mantzaris, praised for its whimsy, clever characterization and felt-puppet stop-motion craft.
Across its four days, the festival also presented the first theatrical screening of the online series Knights of Guinevere, a special screening of Laika's stop-motion feature Wildwood and a Cartoon Saloon 25th anniversary program, before closing on October 19.
Related: 9th Animation Is Film Festival Runs Oct. 16-19 in Hollywood With Nine Competition Titles
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：《Tangles》剧照，影片以黑白二维动画讲述一个家庭面对母亲失智症的故事，获第九届Animation Is Film长片评审团大奖。图片：Animation Is Film电影节官方。 / Still from Tangles, Grand Jury Prize winner at the 9th Animation Is Film Festival. Image: Animation Is Film.
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