Meet Evelyn Seubert | Co-Founder and President, International Youth Media Summit

We had the good fortune of connecting with Evelyn Seubert and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Evelyn, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
I was in my second year of teaching high school film production when the planes started hitting the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The world changed forever. Within hours, we saw the hate and violence that was directed at people of certain ethnic backgrounds, and I thought, “We have to do something about this”. Within days, the Teen International Media Exchange (TIME) was formed, and within weeks we were planning our first online exchange projects.

Since 1994, I had been working with James Gleason. At that time, he was a middle school film teacher and his students produced extraordinary films – even though they were only 13-15 years old. I was working at a film production company at the time, but started working with James and mentoring his students in my off-hours. We even took the kids to the Sundance Film Festival. And that is where they decided they wanted to make their own feature film to enter into the Festival.

In January 1997, 40 teenagers and James and I made the trek to Park City, Utah, to show our film “Common Bonds” at the Festival. It took three years – to write, produce and edit; and I eventually had to stop working and focus on fundraising and mentoring for the young people – but we succeeded. We made a 16mm 70-minute feature film. The premiere at the Director’s Guild, the previous Fall, was one of the proudest moments of my life.

This was the experience where we learned that young people across racial and ethnic divides could learn to work peacefully together – if they cared more about the film they were creating than their differences. This became the model for our international program.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
For the past 18 years we’ve brought together young people from around the world for a two-week intensive filmmaking experience. Each Summit is held in a different global location, enabling the young people to become immersed in local culture. The young filmmakers create short films that tackle seven global issues — discrimination, environment, health, poverty, violence, women’s rights and youth empowerment. They are mentored by local issue experts, who help the delegates explore the causes and potential solutions to these issues. The short films they create become catalysts for change.

The young delegates learn advanced storytelling skills from volunteer professional filmmakers, but also the essential role collaboration plays in all filmmaking. We believe these two factors provide a deeply rewarding experience.
In 18 years, our Summit participants have created 126 short films which you can view on our exclusive YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@iyms_org.

Our ultimate job is to build bridges across cultures, to demonstrate that people from different countries and diverse backgrounds can work together for the common good, and for young people to bring the joy and energy they experience working with their global friends back to their home communities.

We are unique; our experience is hands-on film production from Day 1, and we produce seven worthy projects by the end of the Summit, giving young people a real-world experience.

The easy part is finding young people who are passionate about becoming media changemakers; the hard part is finding funding to keep us going! But we’ve learned – the passion that drives these young people to want to change the world is a force that cannot be denied – and every year we find a way.

This year is our first Summit in Africa!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We have had many international guests over the years, and these are the places that all of us enjoy:

Universal Studios – seeing the “behind the scenes” of filmmaking
The Santa Monica Pier and the 3rd Street Mall
The Getty Museum in the Sepulveda Pass
The Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard
The Hollywood Bowl
A day trip to Ojai to see where they filmed Lost Horizon, the movie about the mythical Shangri-La

Where we’d eat:
California Pizza Kitchen – Hollywood and Highland Mall
The Inn of the Seventh Ray – Topanga
Le Petit Four Restaurant on Sunset
La Fogata Restaurant at the Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Park
Picnic dinner at the Hollywood Bowl
The Hip Vegan Restaurant in Ojai

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
A shoutout to the founders of the Teen International Media Exchange; our partners in South Korea and Belize; the original family members of the International Youth Media Summit, and all of the 1,600 people from 76 countries who have proven that underneath everything else, human beings can set aside their differences and create, dance, and enjoy life together.

Website: https://www.iyms.org

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iyms.summit/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/international-youth-media-summit/

Twitter: https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fiyms_org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iyms.org

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/InternationalYouthMediaSummit

Other: https://sanatione.iyms.org/

SANATIONE: A Time For Healing