Jim Healy | Wisconsin Film Festival  

Jim Healy is UW Cinematheque Director of Programming, a position he has held since October, 2010. From 2001-2010, he was Assistant Curator, Exhibitions in the Motion Picture Department at George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. Prior to that, he was a Film Programmer for the Chicago International Film Festival. Jim is also currently the American Programming Correspondent for the Torino Film Festival in Turin, Italy and he is supervising programming for the 2012 edition of the Wisconsin Film Festival.

Laura Stewart | Director, “Shooter and Whitley”

Working primarily in 16mm film, Laura Stewart constructs tales where narrative and fantasy bump up against elements of truth. Preferring to work with non-actors, she is intrigued by the stories of outlaws and influenced by the landscapes of the Midwest.

Her previous film was a documentary of two traveling Wisconsin carnivals, Mr. Ed’s Magical Midway and Earl’s Rides. The lives of the carnies play out against the midway as they live as modern day nomads, going from town to town. Her other work includes a Super 8 film on old Wisconsin movie theaters, a short film on Vienna’s red light district, and a documentary and narrative hybrid on a drifter and former Army brat who lives in the no man’s land at the edge of Denver as winter begins to set in, titled Ken: Story of a Western Drifter.

Stewart just completed her MFA in film from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, for which she was awarded the William Merchant R. French Fellowship from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago for outstanding Masters of Fine Arts thesis. Prior to that, Stewart lived in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin for eight years.

David Macaset | Co-Director, “The Round Barns of Vernon County”

David Macasaet is a native of Viroqua, Wisconsin and is a UW-Madison alumnus (BA History ’97). He received his MFA in Media Arts from the University of Montana-Missoula where he focused on integrating art and neighborhood revitalization. David’s narrative work has screened around the U.S. at festivals such as the Kansas City Film Festival, Twin Cities Underground, Rawstock Film Festival, and Hatch.

David is a Senior Instructional Technology Consultant at L&S Learning Support Services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and focuses on bringing the art of storytelling to instruction. David is married with two daughters and a stubborn bulldog.

Sharan Mohandoss | Director, “Strings of Colors”

Born and raised in the southern part of India. Sharan, an Alumni – undergraduate from UWM with focus in Film. He picked up the nuances of Cinematography, post production and lighting techniques, which he demonstrated in his depute short film titled, Strings of Colors’, a short observational documentary about weaving of Sarees a traditional dress worn by women in India. Mohanadoss looks forward to securing a job in the area to further learn the nuances of filmmaking techniques. Eventually, he plans to return to India, using his understanding of the culture and the footsteps set by great Indian directors to create significant and meaningful film works

Jeffrey Kurz | Producer, “Water, Ice, Snow”

During his seven-year tenure as an acquisitions and production executive for both Miramax Films and Dimension Films, Jeffrey Kurz was involved in such varied and diverse films as Neil Jordan’s Academy Award-winning The Crying Game, Alex Proyas’ The Crow, Atom Egoyan’s Exotica, Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic, Chris Eyre’s Smoke Signals, Kevin Spacey’s Albino Alligator, and John Carpenter’s Halloween series. And he has worked with a wide range of talented filmmakers and writers — from Bryan Singer and the Wayans Brothers to Clive Barker and Wes Craven.

A graduate of UW-Madison, he formed his own production company, Belle City Pictures, in 2000. Current projects as a producer include: An Ocean Apart with two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Walker for Film4 in London; and Blackdeer with writer John Roach and actor Adam Beach. As a writer, he is working with Vin Diesel’s One Race Films on his original script, This Might Hurt a Bit.

Joseph “Brandon” Colvin ““ Director, “Sabbatical” ““ 72 minute drama

Originally from Kentucky, Brandon began plying his skills at filmmaking in high school by writing scripts and making (awful) shorts. In college, at Western Kentucky University, he met Tony Oswald. When he moved to Madison for graduate school, he met Aaron Granat. The three of them made Frames (2012), the first film from Moss Garden Productions.

In addition to being a filmmaker, Brandon is a PhD student in film studies and a film production instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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