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This year, a group of aspiring student filmmakers turned Silver Spring International Middle School into an underground poker club, a haunted building waiting to take your soul, and the location of a supernatural ninja fight.

Those stories, among many others, resulted from "Lights, Camera, Literacy!" a new program in which about 90 students from the school spent the year learning how to make films. The program culminated in Monday's first-ever Silver Spring International Middle School Film Festival, held under the bright lights of the American Film Institute Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in downtown Silver Spring.

Students and parents filled every seat in the theater to get a big-screen glimpse of the machinations of middle school minds.

One film, titled "Five Star," featured the nine-minute saga of one student's attempt to win a poker game against an intimidating bully. "Dreaming Reality" followed a girl who gained psychic powers and was able to keep her friend from getting hit by a car.

"The Middle School Life of Vince Elwood" featured seventh-grader Ashia Khafra's struggle to fit in at school and his eventual redemption after finding like-minded musicians and forming a band.

"We're not really in a band but we are all friends now," Khafra said during the festival's intermission, while holding court with backslappers like a true Hollywood star might do at a premiere. "I hope everyone can learn from the film that there's always someone out there that will be your friend."

With the technical skills learned through the course — which they call LCL! — students were able use soundtracks, slow-motion playback and various camera angles. One film titled "The Clumsy Ninja" used special effects in a fight scene in which one ninja dodged lightning shot from another ninja's finger.

"I don't always like doing everything," said seventh-grader Ronnita Freeman of the film editing and camera work she learned while taking the course. "But it really was fun to learn and maybe use for later."

Students wrote, acted in, directed and edited all 30 films themselves. The students broke into groups of four to make their films for the festival, each taking a different aspect of the filmmaking process. They even came up with names for their "production companies," such as Chipmunk Productions and Circus Productions, complete with custom logos.

The students even presented the Silver Theatre with a check for $500, which they raised throughout the year so they could feel what it's like to pay for a venue to hold a film festival.

The course is an elective but is meant to supplement English classes by teaching the students how to develop characters and plots, present stories from different perspectives and write thoughtfully.

"They have to follow a script-writing formula, but they have all the creative freedom," said George Mayo, who taught the LCL! course and even played bit roles in the films, including "weird guy with a ruler" in "The Clumsy Ninja."

Funded through the three-year $10 million Middle School Reform program that began in 2007, the class armed students with 11 Apple iBooks and 11 cameras and tripods, which cost about $15,000, Mayo estimated. Other programs throughout the county that are funded through the reform program include a video game programming course and a robotics course, said Linda Ferrell, director of middle school instruction and achievement for MCPS.

Recent budget restrictions have delayed the full rollout of reform programs to all 38 county middle schools, but the film festival is an example of the program's success, Ferrell said.

Lisa Whibley said her sixth-grade daughter, Austen, not only improved her filmmaking skills but her computer skills and ability to analyze movies, television shows and books.

In a short video segment in which students spoke about the program, Austen said the most fundamental reason for taking "Lights, Camera, Literacy!"

"It's way more fun than just sitting in English class and reading a textbook," she said.