In Memoriam, An Interview with the Late Documentary Filmmaker Joel DeMott and her partner, Jeff Kreines

"In my recent Filmmaker conversation with Julia Loktev about the making of her monumental documentary, My Undesirable Friends, I cited the work of the late documentary filmmaker Joel DeMott, because I believe there is a straight line between DeMott's approach in the late 1970s to shooting vérité documentary using shoulder-mounted 16mm cameras and Loktev's latter-day methods using iPhones. DeMott, who died in June, has been eulogized in obits in Documentary and The New York Times,"

"Instead, my way of paying homage to the contributions of DeMott and her partner in filmmaking and life, Jeff Kreines, is to reproduce, below, a 1983 interview I conducted with the two of them-along with a brief introduction I wrote-that appeared in my In Focus column in the March 1983 issue of The Independent, published by the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers in New York."

Joel DeMott developed intimate vérité documentary techniques in the late 1970s using shoulder-mounted 16mm cameras and portable sound equipment to prioritize proximity and immersion. Jeff Kreines collaborated closely with DeMott in a filmmaking partnership centered on personal engagement and close observation. DeMott's practice aligns with a lineage of direct cinema enabled by quiet, lightweight 16mm cameras and portable tape recorders that reshaped nonfiction filmmaking. DeMott's passing in June prompted eulogies in Documentary and The New York Times. Early innovators associated with that era include Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, and Robert Drew.

Read at Filmmaker Magazine