Grants & Awards

About the Film:

Sara Jane Moore was a suburban, middle-aged mother who attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford on Sept. 22, 1975 in San Francisco, CA. In a very short time, Moore went from a Beverly Hills socialite to a radical leftist who advocated the violent overthrow of the government. Remarkably, during this time she also worked as a double agent for the FBI. As Moore’s conflicting loyalties to the Left and the FBI grew, she decided to anonymously reveal her story to the Press. This confession, however, led to her public outing as an informant and both sides put a price on her head. It could be argued that Moore’s desire to get back at these two groups, as well as an overwhelming state of fear and alienation, resulted in her plan for revenge – to kill the President and throw the United States into turmoil. She almost succeeded, the bullet shot from Sara Jane Moore’s gun came within a mere six inches of Ford, and to this day she remains the only woman to ever take a shot at an active president.  Moore served 32 years of her life prison sentence, and was paroled in 2007.

About the Filmmakers:

Robinson Devor (Writer/Director)’s Zoo, his second film, made its world premiere at 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and then on to the prestigious Cannes Directors Fortnight. It was recently named by Filmmaker as “One of the Top 25 Indie Films of The Decade” and is now part of the MoMa’s permanent collection. His first film, Police Beat (Sundance 2005) was named one of 2005’s best films by NY Times, Film Comment and Art Forum. Critics labeled it, “sensationally gorgeous” (Variety), “emotionally devastating” (New York Times) and “one gorgeous widescreen image after another” (Film Threat).  Police Beat was nominated for a Gotham Award ’05 & Indie Spirit Award ’06.

Charles Mudede (Co-Writer) is the Associate Editor for the Seattle-based alternative arts and culture newspaper, The Stranger, as well as lecturer in English Humanities at Pacific Lutheran University. Mudede is also the co-writer of Police Beat and Zoo.

Joshua Zeman (Producer) has been creating and collaborating in the independent film business for over 10 years. Notably, he co-produced Mysterious Skin, The Station Agent, and The Hawk is Dying. For Choking Man, which he produced with Zachary Mortensen at Ghost Robot, he received an IFP Gotham Award.  Most recently, he produced Against the Current, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and served as executive producer for Ceremony (Toronto Film Festival 2010).  2010 marked his directorial debut with the critically acclaimed documentary, Cropsey, which he also wrote and produced.

Zachariah Sebastian (Producer) is founder of Pamphlet + Parable Films, a production company making its debut with The Untitled Sara Jane Moore Project.  Sebastian and Devor are also collaborating on the forthcoming feature film You Can’t Win, based on the cult novel by hobo and criminal Jack Black. Sebastian’s early career focused on producing and developing television programming for the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC), Diverse TV, RDF Media, etc. for the US market.

Sean Kirby (Cinematographer) burst onto the scene in 2005 with Police Beat and The Gits, a documentary about the influential underground Seattle punk band. Kirby won the Seattle International Film Festival Filmmaker’s Award for his cinematography on both films. In 2007, he reteamed with Devor and Mudede to shoot Zoo; which earned him a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in the first annual Cinema Eye documentary awards. His latest credits include Lovely Still, Against the Current, and The Tillman Story. In 2007, he was chosen by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the 25 New Filmmakers to Watch.