Institute for New Media

The Institute for New Media is a non-profit training and production company with beneficial status, dedicated to promote media education and media culture in the region. The Institute consists of two derpartments: The professional training dep. (Media College Rostock) runs vocational training courses. The second department (Media Workshop Rostock) is a regional media culture centre for media education of young people. The Media Workshop is a media school, like art schools supplementing the cultural education provided by common public schools. The Media Workshop runs workshops in the field of film, tv, multimedia etc. to lead young people to the new digital and audiovisual medias and to get them used with their handling, but also to support the young people by producing their own messages, their own media projects. Young people up to 27 are the main target group of the offers. In addition to the training courses the Media Workshop is organizing local, regional and national media competitions and film festivals, from the anual Rostock Film Feast (a local film event) up to the FiSH, the anual Festival in the City Harbour with a national film competition and with european film programmes. The Media Workshop has 8 employees (media teachers, management staff, technicians), volunteers and up to 15 freelance cooperators (lecturers, trainers). The Media Workshop runs pre-vocational training courses for social handicaped young people and is also coordinating a second 3-year-running test project for media education at public schools in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (16 various test schools in the region).
The Institute for New Media Rostock has been organizing and coordinating intercultural/transnational projects with european partners in the fields of education and culture since 18 years. Due to these eurpean contacts the Institute got always important inspirations for its further developement, particularly the experience, that young people today grow up with a real european perspective in a Europe of various regions. Furthermore young german volunteers are permanent involved here at the Institute, and they bring in and realize a lot of their ideas in our projects.
In 2004 the Institut started to organize the anual FiSH - the Festival in the City Harbour of Rostock, a film festival with a national competition for young german film makers up to 27. FiSH is almost organized by the young people themself - participation is a main value in our production based training projects, in event projects as well as in media produktions. In the next years we want to improve the european dimensions/programmes of the film festival.
In 2010 the institute started to integrate Europeen volunteers in the team organizing the festival, with best expiriences:
2012/13 a female volunteer from Latvia, another female one from Bulgaria
2011/12 a female volunteer from Hungary, another female volunteer from Ukraine
2010/11 a female volunteer from Hungary
Rostock is university town (13.000 students) and is with 200.000 inhabitants the biggest city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and in the whole north-east of germany. The Media Workshop Rostock is located in the Art and Media School FRIEDA 23 in the district Kröpeliner-Tor-Vorstadt (KTV) near by the very city centre and close to Rostock's city harbour at the Warnow river. The KTV is the most bohemian quarter of Rostock with a lot of cultural institutions and university locations, various opportunities for young people to get involved in community life, as well as a wide range of pubs. Events and festivals of the Media Workshop Rostock take place here at locations in the city harbour.
Possibilities to learn: job training in event management for an intercultural film festival. In addition to this the volunteer may join courses at the Media Workshop in the field of audiovisual and digital media.
The volunteer will be part of the management team of the festival FiSH and becomes a full member of the staff.Tasks of the volunteer: preparation and organization of media events (competitions and festivals). Main task: preparation and organization of the festival FiSH, which takes place anually in spring time (April or May). The preparation of FiSH starts in autumn of the preceding year, the festival team is growing from the start in autumn with 4 team members up to about 100 team members in spring, most of them young volunteers. The core team of FiSH (including the volunteer) have to instruct, to advise and to moderate the about 100 young team members to enable them for participation in function groups (technicians, festival tv, festival services etc.).
Special tasks of the volunteer (the volunteer will be coached in all tasks by a supervisor): preparation and organization of the exchange film program Off Balticum (dedicated to promote the young film scene of a northern european country), organization of intercultural exchange moduls within the anual FiSH (for example, may be, an transnational team for festival tv). This task includes: to scout the young film scene of a northern european country, to get in contact with festivals, film schools and the national film board of this country, to look for the best young films of this country, to organize the film selection, to invite young film makers and special guests to visit FiSH, to preparate the program schedule, to write announcements for the film schedule (festival catalogue, website), to preparate moderations, to care for guests during the festival, to evaluate and to document the intercultural parts of the festival (FiSH 2013: OFF Latvija - the very best of the young latvian film scene).
Properties, interests and abilities of the volunteer: adult (older than 17) and enabled to organize daily life independently, good social skills and good skills to communicate, willingness to get in contact to various, till now unknown persons, willingness to work in teams, ability and willingness to work independently (with supervision) and to take self-responsibility, interests in the field of intercultural exchange,computer basics: office, web, desirable: not only interests in arts and culture, but also in cinema and movies (nice to have!).
Sending Agency: no special requirements, a organization in the field of media education or media culture (like a film festival) would be nice, but it is not necessary.
The Institute has been working with many young volunteers for years now, especially in festival teams. All permanent employees of the Media Workshop Rostock are experienced in supervising trainees and volunteers. Each trainee or volunteer gets a personal supervisor. Furthermore there will be a tutor, supervising the volunteer if problems occur or conflicts take place. We adjusted our insurance coverage, our work flow and our working enviroment accordingly. Volunteers have opportunities for socializing and networking while working here at Media Workshop. Volunteers get supervising by their team, the teams are organized in a flat hierarchy, the cooperation in teams is based on good felloship between colleagues. In all team meetings there is an open space for the problems and reviews of all colleagues, volunteers and trainees including.
Furthermore there will be a contact person of the supporting organization DUG in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, supervising the process of integrating the young volunteer(s) at Media Workshop Rostock.