Sprockets begins this weekend! Yay! Despite not being aimed at us, Sprockets is one of our favourite film festivals in town for what it represents, which is getting kids out to see, discuss and think about world cinema. It’s pretty important if you have kids to make sure they don’t grow up into adults who say “if I wanted to read, I’d get a book” when faced with a subtitled film.

Admittedly, not everything that Sprockets programs is that high-minded; much like its parent festival TIFF, it shows more obvious fare, such as tonight’s opening night gala, The Reef, which is…like, some kind of a Finding Nemo type of thing. To our memory TIFF showed A Shark’s Tale a few years ago, so maybe they just have a soft spot for underwater CGI, or something. (That’s tonight at 7:00 p.m, at the Winter Garden Theatre).

Torontoists will probably be more interested in the Tribute to Degrassi at the same time, same place on the Saturday night, but there really is an excellent range of films on offer, including a Danish puppet recreation of Alexander Dumas’ famous novel The Three Musketeers (Saturday, 10:00 a.m., Canada Square) The Korean Little Brother (Saturday, 12:10 p.m., Canada Square) and Michel Ocelot animation Azur and Asmar on Sunday, 2:00 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre. Japan is well represented with anime Brave Story (Saturday, 10:30 a.m, Isabel Bader Theatre) and the live action When the Show Tent Came to My Town (Saturday, 12:40 p.m., Canada Square).

In particular we’d like to not forget the short film presentations, which include Fabulous Fables, featuring War and Peas (you may remember the excellent children’s book) on Saturday at 2:50 p.m. at the Canada Square, and the Reel Rascals programme, including the adorable looking Friends Forever selection (Saturday 10:50 a.m., Canada Square). There’s also a fine range of Canadian shorts and the brilliant sounding workshops—we particularly wish we could take part in the "Become a Stop-Motion Pro” workshop, but we’re just out of the age range, sadly.