‘Variety’ Digs Maps – Montana’s Maps Media Institute Offers Students a World of Opportunities

When Peter Rosten, a Hollywood producer with over 30 years of film biz experience, retired to Darby, Mont., in 2002, he noticed the absense of an arts curriculum in the state’s education system and decided that needed to change.

In 2004, with $10,000 of his own savings, Rosten founded Maps Media Institute http://www.mapsmediainstitute.com/ , an after-school arts program based in Hamilton, Mont., that offers underserved students free courses in film, music, technology, design and entrepreneurship. As well there is an intensive four-week summer course in which participants conceive, write and produce their own videos. Maps also travels to underperforming schools in Native American communities and conducts week-long media arts workshops.

Widely touted, Maps was named one of the top 50 after-school programs in the U.S. by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. In 2015 the organization won two awards of excellence from the northwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Alyssa Sage
Staff Writer @alyssasageee

Full Story: http://variety.com/2016/film/spotlight/maps-media-institute-offers-students-world-of-opportunities-1201761070/