By Mathew Kumar

It’s almost time for the Toronto International Film Festival for Children, Sprockets (it runs this year from April 12th to 18th) and the complete line-up of films has been announced. Once again this year all film journalists will find it impossible to mention the festival without bringing up Mike Myers (after all, it’s was one of the best SNL sketches ever, really) but far more relevantly, this year Sprockets features 68 films from 26 countries in 15 languages, maintaining its position as one of the most amazing opportunities for children from ages as young as three to connect with the visual language of other cultures.
This year the selection has 26 features, including Standing Alone (Gholam-Reza Ramezani Iran), The Three Robbers (Hayo Freitag Germany) and Leaps & Bounds (Petter Næss, Sweden).
The Shorts programmes include Canadian Shorts (including Floor Kids from Jonathan Ng, pictured above); Loot Bag (a collection of animated films); Reel Rascals (for the youngest in the audience); and perhaps unusually, Soccer Shorts, a programme about young footy fans (and not, specifically, what they wear instead of trousers).
Tickets for Sprockets Family programme, which runs April 12th and 13th, are now on sale, and are available, along with a lot more detail on the festival, at the Sprockets website.