A Montana program teaching film production to teenagers has been awarded $575,000 in grants after a retired Hollywood producer tried unsuccesfully to secure funding through the Montana Legislature.

The Bitterroot Valley's MAPS Media Institute was selected for five years worth of $115,000 annual grants that are federally funded and routed through the Montana Office of Public Instruction, the state agency's Madalyn Quinlan said Wednesday.

The first-year grant will provide just over one-fourth of the $443,000 budget that Peter Rosten, the retired producer and MAPS founder, projects for the 2009-10 school year. After the grant and with money in the bank, Rosten said, he still must find more than $200,000 in additional support.

"We are sufficiently funded to open our doors, and that's really all that matters," said Rosten, who retired to the Bitterroot Valley in 2002 after a 30-year career that included the 1989 movie "True Believer" and the 1983-87 TV series "Scarecrow and Mrs. King."

He said the grant obtained through the Montana Office of Public Instruction will be used to fund the after-school work of MAPS. Instruction during the school day also is planned.

Rosten approached school administrators about starting MAPS at Bitterroot Valley's Corvallis High School in 2004. The program began as Media Arts in the Public Schools, and got a fresh moniker incorporating the acronym.

It expanded to nearby Darby High School, and now Rosten is preparing to teach students from all five high schools in the Bitterroot's Ravalli County. Operations will be based in a former Hamilton school, he said.

Rosten projects enrollment of 70 students during the school day and about triple that in the after-school classes. Web site design has been added to the offerings.

In 2008, Rosten put MAPS on hold while he ran for the Legislature and lost. As he prepared for this fall's relaunching of MAPS, he unsuccessfully sought a $200,000 appropriation from the 2009 Montana Legislature.

Grants, donations and fees paid by clients who use his students' work, which included public service announcements as well as films, helped cover program expenses in the past, and Rosten said he expects a similar combination as MAPS restarts. MAPS generated $165,000 in revenue during the program's last active year, Rosten said.

At least half the budget for the coming school year is for payroll. Rosten said he expects MAPS to employ 15 to 20 people, some of them high school students or recent graduates.

Although MAPS has been on the sidelines, it has not been silent. A teen-produced video for the Ravalli County Youth Suicide Prevention Alliance was delivered this month.

On the Web

www.mediarts.org