The Round Barns of Vernon County
Cina barn at sunrise
Documentary: Wisconsin's Own
Synopsis
Vernon County, Wisconsin has the highest concentration of round barns in the world. Through roadside interviews and sensuous 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 descendants alike describe Shivers and his anomalous early 20th century community with a common idea: people all got along and helped each other survive.
Filmmakers
Near the township of Forest, Wisconsin
David Macasaet is a native of Viroqua, WI and works at UW-Madison as a Senior Instructional Technology Consultant, specializing in media production and blended & online course design. His narrative work has screened across the U.S. at festivals such as the Kansas City Film Festival, Twin Cities Underground, the D.C. Asian American Film Festival, Hatch, and RawStock.
David is a UW-Madison alumnus (BA History ’97) and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Integrated Media Arts program at the University of Montana-Missoula. You can read about David's history with the barns here.
Near Valley Township, Wisconsin
Shahin Izadi is documentary and narrative filmmaker currently pursuing his MFA in Film and Media Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Prior to this, he spent eight years living in Madison, Wisconsin where he made short films, participated in the micro-cinema community Wis-Kino, and documented the Wisconsin Uprising (portions of which appear in "Citizen Koch"). His films have screened at Occupy the Film Festival, San Fransisco LaborFest, and the Diamond Screen Film Festival. He received his PhD in philosophy from UW-Madison.