(Canscene) — Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children opens on the 18th of this month and will run until April 24th.

Now in its 12th annual edition, this event, created by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has scheduled 70 films from 22 countries. Forty-one are shorts ranging from animation to live action.

Of the 29 feature length films, from Finland comes the feature Stormheart, about a prodigiously large dog who is manageable only by a nine-year-old and from Sri Lanka, King Siri, the story of a poor village boy whose talent leads him to enrollment in a Colombo school and a struggle to find money for an elaborate costume for a school play.

From Breakout series — Photo by Lalita Krishna

Far more than just showing films appealing to children there are a number of interactive programs. such as Breakout scheduled for Monday April 20 and Tuesday April 21. This will feature a selection from the series of five-minute shorts directed and filmed by Lalita Krishna for CBC encouraging youngsters to think globally and act locally. Each day, there will be a panel discussion on the shorts shown. Krishna’s feature length documentary Move Your World won the audience choice award at the 2006 festival.

Full details of ways in which tickets may be purchased plus a schedule of films may be obtained from the official web site at www.sprockets.ca. Telephone: 416 908-3450.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.