Spotlight on Stacy Barton

By the time they complete Stacy Barton’s Crew Production class, Augustana film students are 100% trained to be production assistants. They have experience that can help build up the film industry in the Quad Cities and Illinois, or wherever their creativity, unique voice and skills lead them. 

Stacy Barton is the head of Augustana’s film program, which launched in 2022, and currently its sole faculty member. It’s a big role, especially considering her goals for her students: 

• Develop students’ skills at bringing their serious talents as storytellers to completed, high-quality films.
• Get those original films in front of audiences – including employers and grad programs.
• Impact the community, economy and cultural richness of the Quad Cities.

Barton has described film as “the most labor-intensive art form,” requiring advanced technology, multi-step processes and business administration – not to mention original, creative concepts.

Bold & Boundless in action

Two pillars of the Bold & Boundless strategic plan, Prioritize Engaged Learning and Partner with Community, are at the core of Augustana’s film program.

Hands-on learning is how students transform their unique voice and vision into completed films. “Seeing a young person, once timid and afraid to touch the camera and work the tripod, grow in confidence and master their videography and editing skills is what makes me feel the most pride in the classroom,” said Barton.

As a professor and as a filmmaker, Barton aims to meet needs in the community. She organizes and facilitates opportunities for students to enter their projects into local and regional festivals—an “outreach mission” that brings young filmmakers and audiences together, for the benefit of both.

In her J-term documentary filmmaking course, she asks students to “look into the community for important stories just waiting to be told.” Recent documentaries focused on:

• Nest Café in Rock Island, a pay-what-you-can café to lift up the disadvantaged in the community
• Local Palestinian and Jewish leaders speaking out, together, against the Israeli-Palestinian War
• Promotion of the Rock Island Grand Prix

In summer of 2024 and 2025, Barton worked with Quad City Arts as the lead artist for the Metro Arts Film Apprenticeship Program, using the Augustana film facilities on campus. Here is a clip from “Art is Work: 25 Years of Metro Arts” a 23-minute documentary she produced with Quad City Arts and the work of local high school film apprentices. The completed documentary screened at the 2025 Alternating Currents Festival and will air on public television.

Outcomes

Graduating students are prepared to take on any role in video production, including the filmmaking industry, independent filmmaking, client-based and freelance video production. They graduate with a breadth of experience, individually and as a part of a crew.

Two recent graduates were in the spotlight even before graduating:

Emma Watts ’25 (film and theatre performance) from Rock Falls, Illinois, was interviewed by the Quad-City Times and WVIK for a documentary with the working title “Voices from the Dark,” about the “radium girls”—factory workers at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Ill, in the 1920s and 1930s. Currently Watts is a studio manager for The Radar Frees Press in Rockford, Illinois, and completing her documentary as producer/director at her own studio, Cloudy Eye Productions.

Matthew Chezum ’25 (film and chemistry) of New Windsor, Illinois, won the Audience Choice Eddy Award at the 2024 Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival for his film short, “S’mores.” After this win, Chezum was invited by several other festivals to submit his film. He called the experience “The perfect plunge into my career as a filmmaker,” and is now a freelance sports broadcaster working on a full-length feature film.

Student perspective: Ludovica Chiovini ’27

Film & media, theatre performance and creative writing triple major

Ludovica Chiovini came from Italy to Augustana to study film, and plans to pursue a career in the film industry after graduation.

“Working with Professor Barton has been an honor. Coming from the other side of the world, I found a mentor, someone who was there for me and helped me discover my own potential. I went from being afraid to share my ideas to becoming more confident, eager to learn, to take risks, and to embrace even my most extravagant ideas. 

“Professor Barton has always been by my side, even when I didn’t realize I needed her, guiding me through the process of becoming who I am today. I will be forever grateful for that.”

The Bold & Boundless Spotlights shine a light on Augustana faculty and staff members whose work embodies the college’s strategic goals and values through research and/or teaching, advising and mentorship, experiential learning or service. 

The spotlights also showcase how Augustana prepares students for dynamic lives and careers, and reinforce the college’s reputation among private liberal arts colleges as a school providing innovative preparation for the future.