A still from Unnamed Sarah Jane Moore Project
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  • Kelly O

After watching 14 minutes of footage from Rob Devor and Charles Mudede‘s next experimental documentary—about Sarah Jane Moore, the first woman to fire a loaded gun at a U.S. president—the Genius Awards committee came to an awkward realization: We couldn’t keep ignoring Devor and Mudede’s films. Together, they have completed two feature films, Police Beat and Zoo, both of which premiered at Sundance. The third, currently titled Unnamed Sarah Jane Moore Project, is a Sundance 2011 hopeful. After months of deliberations and watching many other films, and then seeing Devor and Mudede’s new work in progress, we simply couldn’t justify not giving them the award, even though Mudede also obviously has a day job here at The Stranger.

A still from Unnamed Sarah Jane Moore Project (click to enlarge)
  • A still from Unnamed Sarah Jane Moore Project (click to enlarge)

New York Times critic Manohla Dargis called Police Beat one of the highlights of Sundance in 2006 and described it as “a delicately funny tale about everyday surrealism.” And of Zoo, she said: “Characters don’t just walk in this film; they float across the frame, pouring like liquid toward their inexorable destinies.” Unnamed Sarah Jane Moore Project chronicles the very weird existence of Moore, the seemingly innocuous wife/mother/accountant who tried to assassinate President Ford in 1975 and was released from prison in 2007 at age 77. It shares the previous two films’ uncanny atmospherics, blending of reality and fiction, and hyper-choreographed visuals. This is major, genius-level filmmaking coming out of Seattle.

Rob Devor is in New York working an another film project, but we reached him in our offices via Skype. A technical snag kept us from hearing what he said, but he appeared bewildered and happy. They will split the $5,000 award; Mudede is donating his half of the award to local film nonprofit Northwest Film Forum.

Congratulations, Rob and Charles!

More information about this year’s Genius Awards available HERE. The awards will be presented at a great, big, fun, bonkers party at the Moore Theater, September 17th. BE THERE.

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

33 replies on “The Genius Award for Film Goes to Robinson Devor and Charles Mudede”

  12. Wow, seriously? You guys give your award to your staffer? And based on a 14 min work in progress? And because someone somewhere actually liked Police Beat and Zoo? (Maybe you could give Sean Porter a genius award for his camera work on those two but they simply stalled as narrative pieces.). Epic fail.

  15. @12: you’re probably thinking Sean Kirby, though Sean Porter also rules. If memory serves, Porter worked on Zoo as well, but whatevs.

  16. Zoo didn’t interest me. I saw Police Beat at the library and, recognizing Devor’s name from work, decided to check it out. It had its moments — “delicately funny” is a perfect description — and was certainly more interesting and stylish than a lot of films, but was a bit too surreal for me. But genius-level filmmaking? I dunno. To me, genius-level filmmaking would be Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel battling a horde of Islamic extremist drug-cartel vampire banker zombies, followed by an hour-long love scene between them and Penelope Cruz.

  17. Great news for Charles, but it doesn’t make Rob any less of an abusive asshole. Did anyone on the committee think to ask why Rob can’t find another crew in Seattle who would be willing to work for his $100/day bullshit?

  19. Congrats! I was going to download the movies and watch them, but only Police Beat was on The Pirate Bay and it doesn’t have any active seeders…

  21. The conflict of interest could have been eliminated if you had just fired Charles from his job writing credibility-straining/aneurysm-inspiring Slog posts, given him another $5000 (on top the $5000 awesomely donated to NWFF), and forced him to spend 100% of his time making Police Beat-level-of-genius films!!

  22. Dear Slog– Please allow this genius to focus on making great films. Specifically, please make him stop posting senseless crap to slog.

  23. let’s hope charles can use this award to quit his day job and start showering us with awesome surrealist films instead of boring pseudo-intellectual blog posts!

  26. A cake is a cake. guys–but if there’s $$$ involved, Charles should’ve been ineligible. What’s next–you going to give a journalism award to Dan?

  31. I know Mudede-bashing is a traditional Slog pastime, but I want to take the opportunity to say how much I enjoy his posts (okay, most of the time).

    xoxo,
    YFISF

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