A film co-produced by David Macasaet, a staff member in L&S Learning Support Services, will be screened at this year's Wisconsin Film Festival.
Macasaet (B.A.'97, History), media services coordinator and senior instructional technology consultant for LSS, directed the short documentary, The Round Barns of Vernon County. He co-produced the film with fellow LSS alumnus Shahin Izadi (M.A.'08, Ph.D.'11, Philosophy).
Macasaet is a native of Viroqua, Wis., the county seat of Vernon County, which has the highest concentration of round barns in the world. Macasaet's childhood home was around the corner from the red round tile barn that is featured prominently in the film.
Through roadside interviews and beautiful pictorial vignettes, The Round Barns of Vernon County explores these unusual structures, their enigmatic African-American builder, Algie Shivers, and his unique mixed race community, the Cheyenne Valley. Historians and decedents alike describe Shivers and his anomalous early 20th-century community with a common idea: people from various backgrounds all got along and helped each other survive.
Macasaet is an accomplished filmmaker whose narrative work has screened around the country at festivals such as the Kansas City Film Festival, Twin Cities Underground, Rawstock Film Festival, and Hatch. In his position at LSS, Macasaet focuses on bringing the art of storytelling to instruction, helping to design curricula, timetable courses, special topic workshops and training sessions that integrate digital storytelling components. A gifted narrator, he lends his cinematographic creativity and refined storytelling sensibilities to all of his projects for LSS.
The 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival is scheduled for April 3-10.