It has long been so that the voice of youth doesn’t always speak a language that comes across loud and clear to adults, and young people also seem to hear things other than what the older folks say.

There’s hardly any argument that young people have a lot of interesting things to tell us; what they often lack, though, are platforms from which to speak out and chances to do so. This is where Umlaut M. comes in.

Martina Sochor and William Mikulascheck of Umlaut M.

The project itself is still pretty young; you might call this collaboration with CREATE YOUR WORLD its confirmation. The M in the name stands for media; um laut is a play on words that means to get LOUD! And that’s the point—placing the right tools at the disposal of youngsters interested in producing their own TV shows. Media designers with pedagogical training will lead workshops that provide an introduction to moderating a show, editing footage, dramaturgy, sound engineering and all the other arts and skills it takes to transform a few minutes of film material into a program that makes audiences want to watch, but that’s as far as they go—there’ll be no editorial intervention, because the object is for the young crew members to define their own topics, to find their own language, and to use this media outlet to present things the way they see them. After all, it’s nice to have opinions and ideas, but it’s even better to communicate them for all to see and hear.

First off, participants will produce content for their own Youtube channel. But the internet, as everybody knows, has no limits, so nobody knows for sure where exactly this trip is headed. One joint venture is already in place: DORF-TV is providing Umlaut M. with a timeslot in its programming lineup.

In conjunction with the CREATE YOUR WORLD festival, this production project will operate as sort of an open lab—you can drop in whenever you want, check out what’s going on at the moment and, if it appeals to you, take the plunge. Since this festival is all about lowering the threshold to involvement, having to apply for membership on a film crew is definitely not what the organizers had in mind.

But whoever is already sure they want to book this trip can sign up via e-mail to umlaut.m@gmx.at or on Facebook. You’ll find more detailed information in this PDF (sorry, German only).