PARIS – Red carpet, an inquiring press and the flashing bulbs of the local paparazzi will be greeting SAD 17 filmmakers Thursday night at the 2nd Annual M’ iMovie Film Festival.

The festival, held at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, will feature 26 films made by students in the district ranging from kindergarteners to teens to staff.

Richard McIntosh, technology assistant and one of the founding officials of the festival, said he expects the evening – from red carpet entrances to final award presentation to take about three hours.

“It was drizzly last year and I’m hoping it doesn’t happen this year,” McIntosh said. “We would like to stretch the red carpet all the way to the curb, instead of just to the entry way of the high school.”

He said tickets to the event are free, as long as they last. The only place to get tickets is at the SAD 17 office, 1570 Main St., Oxford. Any tickets left will be given out at the high school on the M’ iMovie night. The event was named after Apple software used to edit movies.

The festival began when McIntosh, Nancy Hohmann, gifted and talented teacher, and Luba Greene, a fourth-grade teacher at Waterford Memorial School, decided to do something with the 17 digital cameras Apple Computer gave the district two years ago after a large purchase of computer equipment.

“Nancy and I were just talking about what to do with the cameras and how to get students to use them,” he said. “We wanted to use them as a teaching tool. We decided that having a Hollywood-film-festival atmosphere around movies that were created would be a good tool for generating excitement.”

McIntosh said that nearly 300 people attended the festivities last year.