A project that creates video materials featuring intercultural events happening with foreign exchange students in their host countries. The focus of the films is on intercultural situations among Europeans.

Coping with another culture in everyday life is not as easy as it seems. There's a feeling of being a stranger in a new country. There can be misunderstandings or misinterpretations of "normal" behaviours. Cultural meetings and intercultural interactions can cause many funny situations but also unpleasant situations for both parties.

Intercultural differences between European cultures are less obvious than, for example, between Europeans and Asians. These differences are therefore sometimes more difficult to accept. They might simply be considered just as "bad manners”. The intention is to demonstrate behaviours that have different meanings in different European countries, to make young people reflect on the advantages resulting from the diversity and cultural differences and to learn how to understand and effectively deal with different cultures.

The project produces three 3-minute fiction movies and a documentary accompanied with the Guiding Notes for the debriefing.

The movies are filmed in Belgium, Germany and Portugal and feature three typical situations for teenagers - a school situation, a family situation and a party, where the three protagonists (foreign students from other countries) deal with a variety of intercultural “adventures”.

Under the spotlight are different cultural norms and behaviours such as greetings, dealing with the opposite sex, styles of dress, norms around social gatherings, pupil-teacher relations, respect towards elderly people, discussions in groups, norms regarding personal space, relations to time, taboos, politeness, etc. The movies demonstrate different patterns of behaviour where culture can manifest itself and the impact of intercultural experiences. They are also a great engine to generate discussions leading to more extended intercultural awareness.

The documentary includes scenes from the movies with comments from renowned intercultural experts and interviews with young people who went through a similar process of intercultural learning.

The movies and the documentary are accompanied by the Guiding Notes for the facilitators, which will explain how to use the scenes, what questions to raise during discussions, or how to combine movies with other non-formal education exercises.

The movies are to be used for intercultural education in schools for secondary school students and during workshops for pupils leaving for an intercultural exchange.

The actual project team consists of five organisations. The overall project management and production lies with EFIL, which is also in charge of developing the story line and collecting the materials for the documentary. The three other partners in Germany, Belgium and Portugal are responsible for producing short video “snapshots” in their respective countries. Those three partners are Intercultura AFS Portugal, Potemkino, Belgium and AFS Interkulturelle Begegnungen E.V. Germany.

In Belgium the crew is supported by AFS Programmes Interculturelles. The inside and guidance on the intercultural learning questions is provided by the Intercultural Education and Quality Manager from the AFS USA.

The reason for the collaboration with partners are: exchange of ideas and experiences; references to experience of exchange students and hosting families; support and interviews with prominent scientists that allow the project to dig deeper and ask in-depth questions about cultures; the movies not only refer to intercultural communication but also to the process of creating the movies → intercultural team; it also represents a good opportunity for young video artists.

The project was co-funded by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, by the Anna Lindh Foundation and by a private donation from Mr. Marco Balich, the CEO of the Italian multimedia company "Filmmaster Group”.

The three episodes of “snapshots” produced so far feature situations in Portugal, Germany and Belgium. The idea is to continue filming the episodes in other European countries in 2009.