TIFF KIDS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2012 at TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West) from Friday (April 13) to April 22. tiff.net. See listings.
Remember Sprockets? Cast that name from your mind, children.
The all-ages spring celebration shall hereafter be known as the TIFF Kids International Film Festival.
Not a particularly elegant name, but it consolidates the brand and means local writers have to quit it with the Mike Myers dancing jokes.
The quality of the films on offer hasn’t changed as always, the programmers have brought a solid lineup of shorts, features and documentaries from around the world to the Lightbox.
The public component kicks off Friday night with the Canadian premiere of DisneyNature’s Earth Day offering, Chimpanzee. Veteran nature filmmakers Alastair Fothergill (African Cats) and Mark Linfield (Earth) document the life of a young chimp living with his troop somewhere in the jungles that run through Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire.
It’s a little on the anthropomorphic side, and Tim Allen’s insistently chummy narration grated on me, but the developments in the second half are genuinely gripping, and the high-def images are stunning.
Other features include a new German adaptation of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, in which four teenagers (and one incredibly photogenic border collie) solve modestly scaled mysteries, and Alfie, The Little Werewolf, a Netherlands comedy that arrives with the delightful cautions “minimal comedic violence,” “unseen animal death (eaten)” and “biting.” Suitable for ages seven through 10!
Me, I’m most looking forward to Wednesday night’s sneak peek of Aardman Animation’s new feature, The Pirates! Band Of Misfits. These are the cracked geniuses who made Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas, so my expectations are impossibly high – but I have hopes that director Peter Lord will meet them.
Lord will be here for a Q&A after the screening, and he’ll discuss Aardman’s history and its innovative business model in a master class on April 19. I’m just hoping he brings along some props to illustrate the sheer genius of their character design. Really, anything from the Wallace & Gromit shorts will do.
