Rating: NNNNN
SPROCKETS Toronto INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL FOR CHILDREN Good children’s films are like good parents: they don’t condescend, they just kneel down and listen. The films at this year’s Sprockets illustrate this principle well. Some get bogged down when they try to teach, like Ikíngut, a trite racism parable set in pre-modern Iceland. Others strain to be hip, like Miracle, a self-conscious Danish film about a 12-year-old boy’s lessons from heaven. Mariken, on the other hand, is a delightfully realized Dutch fairy tale about a girl who’s raised in an enchanted forest by an old man granted a second chance at fatherhood. And Steven Soderbergh’s King Of The Hill tracks a resourceful boy fending for himself during the Great Depression. The short film program boasts many gentle insights, too. NNN (April 20-22 and April 28-29, Varsity Cinemas and the Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles West for schedule, see Rep Cinemas, page 87 )