The Toronto International Film Festival Group is gearing up for growing audiences as it approaches the sixth year of its international children’s film festival Sprockets, running April 25 to May 4 at Famous Players Canada Square and various workshop locations.

Since its inaugural year in 1998, the Sprockets audience has grown from 2,000 to 15,000 last year this year’s program, announced March 25, includes features and shorts from 21 countries and spans 15 languages.

The festival opens with the world premiere of A Wrinkle in Time, a U.K./Canada/U.S. coproduction of the classic book by Madeleine L’Engle, starring Alfre Woodard (The Core, Star Trek: First Contact), London, ON-born Kate Nelligan (The Cider House Rules) and Vancouver’s Katie Stuart (X-Men 2). Sprockets will also feature 10 new Wallace and Gromit shorts from the animation team at Aardman Productions, makers of Chicken Run.

Sprockets shorts are presented in four programs – Movie Mosaic, Animation Nation, My True Self and Celebrating Strength – which deal with subjects ranging from body image to cultural identity to political conflict from the perspective of children.

The festival’s Reel Rascals program presents films designed for children ages three to six and this year includes the Toronto premiere of the animated film Bob the Builder: A Christmas to Remember.

In addition to the festival’s 17 features and 54 short films, it also presents workshops that take children behind the scenes, including Learn to Make a Film – In a Day and Animate Your World, in which children make themselves into an animated character.

Five awards will be presented at the festival’s closing ceremonies May 4. The Feature Award for best live-action film and the Animation Award for best animated film are chosen by the Sprockets audience, and the remaining three are chosen by children’s juries.

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/sprockets2002