Tangles: VIFF 2026
Tangles: VIFF 2026
The Vancouver International Film Festival returns for their 45th year this October 1-11 for another curated season celebrating the best in independent, Canadian, documentary, and international shorts and features.
Abbi Jacobson voices Sarah, a queer magazine illustrator based on the West Coast, in Leah Nelson’s touching and darkly humorous animated film. Torn between worlds, Sarah is forced to put her budding relationship with her biker girlfriend Donimo (Samira Wiley) on hold to tend to her ailing mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) across the country. As her mom’s once vibrant and outspoken personality is eroded by early-onset Alzheimer’s, their big, eccentric family (including Bryan Cranston as Sarah’s father) must find the courage to pick up the pieces.
A star-studded cast of comedians lend their voices to this adaptation of Vancouverite cartoonist Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir of the same name. The film’s surrealist flourishes viscerally evoke the throes of anticipatory grief: from Sarah’s psychedelic panic at losing her mom in a Día de Muertos carnival crowd, to the dissociative sensation of drowning at the news of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Tangles exemplifies the expressive emotional power of 2D animation.
Nominated for the Caméra d’Or and the Queer Palm at Cannes 2026.
Content Considerations: Alzheimer’s disease, death
Sunday, October 11
Doors 9:00 pm | Film 9:30 pm *Start time subject to change. Please arrive on time.
Tickets HERE
VIFF thanks the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations for their continued stewardship of the unceded and occupied land on which our work takes place. As an organization founded and predominantly directed by settlers and immigrants, we understand our responsibility to seek out and build authentic relationships with Indigenous communities, and to allow this ongoing dialogue to influence our practices. As part of this process, we remain committed to collaborating with and supporting Indigenous artists, filmmakers, curators, and audiences.
