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A CLASS ‘ACTION!’

Fledgling city filmmakers soon will be able to hone their craft in high school.

The Cinema School, the fifth of seven academically selective public schools the city has pledged to open, is slated to premiere in September in The Bronx.

“The next generation of Martin Scorseses and Spike Lees are out there,” Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday, “and I can’t wait to see their senior projects four years from now.”

An award-winning nonprofit film organization called the Ghetto Film School will run the school, which will offer a rigorous liberal-arts curriculum, cinema-studies courses and a six-week production class taught by industry professionals.

Ghetto Film School founder Joe Hall called Cinema School the first such school in the country.

He said it was made possible through a partnership with the Department of Education and film-industry supporters.

Ghetto, which has been honored by the mayor’s office and the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, announced yesterday it will accept a small class of ninth-graders for the 2009-10 school year.

Prospective students will be selected based on grades, writing samples and teacher recommendations.

The Cinema School will grow by a grade each year until it reaches an enrollment of 325 students in grades 9 through 12.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said the Cinema School “is the first of these new selective schools to offer students the opportunity to explore in depth a form of artistic expression.”

The other four selective schools already opened offer liberal-arts curricula and focus on specific themes, such as Latin. Two more are scheduled to open over the next two years.

The Cinema School will be housed in a new building on the Monroe HS campus.