It’s an occupational risk for anyone that targets a kids audience.

Very young kids eventually grow up, forcing you to either steer your playful offering to tweens and teens, or to let go of your fan base.

That was the dilemma facing the Toronto International Film Festival, which has turned the former Sprockets kids festival franchise into separate events to run from April 10 to 22, 2012.

“Sprockets as an entity was catering to a really wide range of audiences, and we really identified that we could break this festival up to really focus the core programming and the mandate onto specific age groups,” Shane Smith, director of public programmes at TIFF, tells Playback Daily.

The TIFF Kids International Film Festival, to launch on April 13 with the Canadian bow for the Disneynature feature Chimpanzee from directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, will focus on traditional film for kids aged 3 to 13.

And the TIFF Kids digiPlaySpace, to fill the Bell Lightbox gallery, will offer an interactive environment filled with games, apps and other digital tools and hands-on digital production.

Smith added that, with teens not keen on watching movies seated alongside tweens or little kids, the Toronto festival is launching the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival from May 10 to 12, 2012 to give young adults their own event.

“Our Next Wave team committee actually programs the Next Wave festival, so it’s an authentic voice putting together a festival for teenagers and students,” he argues.

Segmented festivals for a fragmenting audience is also about TIFF and the Bell Lightbox building and sustaining long-term relationships with young Canadians.

“We would love – now that we have this building – to create life-long relationships with our audience, starting at pre-school,” Smith says.

“This (Bell Lightbox) building gives us the opportunity to really have a holistic overview of our audience, and to create specific programming, events and opportunities for those specific age groups,” he adds.

The TIFF Kids film festival will feature a record-breaking 130 films, comprising 35 features and 95 shorts from 41 countries.

The first-night Disneynature feature aims to draw attention to the event, while the bulk of the film program is made up of international films not likely to show up at the local multiplex.

There’s international premieres for Czech director Petr Oukropec’s The Blue Tiger, a hybrid live action and animated film about a magical tiger who saves a garden from demolition by a diabolical city mayor, and Dutch director Dennis Bots’ Cool Kids Don’t Cry, about a tough girl who is diagnosed with leukemia, and the impact on friends and family.

Besides the usual complement of kids-themed movies from Europe, TIFF programmers have also gathered a slate of Asian pictures, including Indian director Rojan Khosa’s Gattu, and Somaratne Dissanayake’s King Siri, from Sri Lanka.

Photo: Chimpanzee / Disney.com