Its full name is Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children, but around here we just call it Sprockets (or “Shprockets” if we’re feeling a bit Teutonic). Now entering its tenth year, this family-focused festival is screening 98 films from 28 countries from April 13-22, 2007 at several venues around the city. For the first time, and despite the fact that we have no kids, my wife and I will be seeing a couple of films. On Saturday April 14th, we’ll see:
- Brave Story (Japan) — 10:30am, Isabel Bader Theatre
- The Island of Lost Souls (Denmark) — 2:00pm, Isabel Bader Theatre
We were very careful to choose screenings where the subtitles are NOT read aloud, since our experience with this at TIFF last year was very distracting. Sprockets reminds us that there is a whole world of film out there that rarely sees theatrical distribution in North America. If you have kids, why not introduce them to something outside the Hollywood mainstream early in their lives? It will open up the whole world to them.