Leah Nelson to Helm Alzheimer’s Themed Animated Film ‘Tangles’

UTA Independent Film Group and CAA are co-repping domestic rights.
“When we founded Monarch Media two years ago, it was exactly with this kind of project in mind,” Patel said. “To be able to address a topic that’s so personal to me, to be able to bring this amazing novel to life so that others can enjoy and learn from it and to do so with such wonderful partners in Lauren, Seth and Leah, is incredibly fulfilling.”
Monarch Media, Point Grey Pictures, Lylas Pictures, and Giant Ant have teamed up to produce Tangles, an animated feature now in the works based on Sarah Leavitt’s 2010 award-winning graphic novel, “Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me,” Deadline reports. Giant Ant co-founder Leah Nelson will direct.
“I’m overjoyed at the opportunity to make this unique and special film,” stated Nelson. “When I read the graphic novel, I was blown away by Sarah Leavitt’s ability to tell her story with such honesty and bold creativity and I knew it needed to be brought to life on screen.”
Whitney is a freelance writer focusing on VFX-driven fantasy film & TV as well as preschool animation.
Vicky Patel, Steve Barnett, and Alan Powell will produce through Monarch Media, Seth Rogen through Point Grey Pictures, and Lauren Miller Rogen through Lylas Pictures. Patel, Seth Rogen, and Lauren Miller Rogen are all Alzheimer’s activists and each has a personal history with the disease. Lauren Miller Rogan lost her mother, grandmother, and grandfather to Alzheimer’s.  After her mother’s diagnosis, she and husband Seth Rogan founded Hilarity for Charity, a nonprofit which has raised over million in support of education, family caregivers, and prevention research.  Patel, having lost her own father to Alzheimer’s, has become one of the nation’s leading fundraisers for brain science research.  The Alzheimer’s Association honored Patel this year with its prestigious Jerome H. Stone Philanthropy Award.

On her website, Leavitt writes of the memoir, “When my mother Midge was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 55, I knew right away that I wanted to write about the unknown territory my family was entering – disorienting, devastating and strange, but also full of tenderness and love… My goal was to create an unsparing documentation of our family’s journey, including not only the grief, anger and fear, but also the moments of love and joy and even some dark humour.”