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Joel DeMott

Joel "Jo" Heyward DeMott was an American documentary film director. She is known for the independent cinéma vérité films she made in collaboration with Jeff Kreines, Seventeen and Demon Lover Diary.

Life and career
Early life DeMott was born on April 22, 1947, in Washington, DC, and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended public school in Amherst before attending an English school in Portugal for a "happy year" and what she described as a "girls’ cloister in Northampton" for "three miserable years". Kreines was hired by factory worker and first-time director Donald G. Jackson as cameraman for his feature The Demon Lover (1976), a low budget horror film which would shoot in Michigan. Kreines and DeMott drove to Michigan, and DeMott documented the journey and production in her second film Demon Lover Diary, which was released in 1980. The film was praised by critics and won the 1980 Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s Independent/Experimental Film and Video Award, sharing the prize with Journeys From Berlin by Yvonne Rainer, a category which was introduced that year. DeMott assisted her father, Benjamin DeMott, with research for three books. Personal life DeMott lived in Coosada, Alabama. She collected outsider art with her partner, Jeff Kreines. ==Death==
Death
DeMott died on June 13, 2025 in Montgomery, Alabama of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. ==Style and influence==
Style and influence
Kreines and DeMott developed a 16mm camera rig, improving on Ed Pincus's setup, Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus put Demon Lover Diary on a list of the best documentaries of all time for the 1997 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 2008, Film Comment described Demon Lover Diary and Seventeen as "positively crucial to documentary film history." Director Kelly Reichardt wrote to DeMott after seeing Demon Lover Diary: "It would have changed my life if I would have seen that image of you in the mirror holding that camera in 1975 when I was 11 years old. It feels startling and important to me now at age 54." Ross McElwee credited DeMott and Kreines's work as an inspiration for Sherman’s March. According to Documentary, "DeMott created a model of intimate cinema vérité filmmaking that has inspired countless filmmakers." ==Filmography==
Filmography
DirectorVince and Mary Ann Get MarriedMontgomery Songs (1976) • 36 Girls (1976) • Down on the Farm (1977) • God & Country (1978) • Demon Lover Diary (1980) • Seventeen (1983) • A Simple Trip (1984) • Goldberg Street (2027) Only Demon Lover Diary and Seventeen are publicly available, with Goldberg Street scheduled for a 2027 release. Source. CinematographerThe Energy War (1979) • Depeche Mode 101 (1989) ==Notes==
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