Following Zionsville artist Nancy Noel’s death in 2020, her son Alex Kosene and Sami Mustaklem made a Celebration of Life short film for the Indianapolis Children’s Museum in 2021.
Geist resident and film producer Amy Pauszek suggested it be made into a full documentary.
“She was instrumental in getting it going,” said Kosene, who is the director. “I thought it was going to take me a while to do all the necessary things. Amy said we should do this now. It put us on a different timeline. Through her social media, it showed there was an appetite for it.”
“Art & Soul: A Portrait of Nancy Noel” will have its premiere in the Heartland International Film Festival at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 7 at The Toby at Newfields in Indianapolis. There will be additional screenings at 7:45 p.m. Oct. 12 and 4:45 p.m. Oct. 13 at Emagine Noblesville.
Kosene, who grew up in Zionsville, and business partner Sami Mustaklem took about eight months to create the documentary.
“We had a blueprint from the short film for the Children’s Museum,” said Mustaklem, the film’s editor and a producer. “One of the benefits of what Alex and I do is we always have to work fast. With this project, we knew the story we wanted to tell. Obviously, very few people knew Nancy like Alex does.”
Mustaklem was still putting the finishing touches on the film last month.
“We wanted this to be the perfect tribute to Nancy Noel,” Mustaklem said.
The film features interviews with people from around the area.
“There’s quite a bit of an interview I was able to do with her shortly before she passed,” Kosene said. “That is a lot of what you are hearing when you hear Nancy’s voice in the film.”
Kosene said he conducted a three-hour interview on a day she was feeling a bit better.
“Mother was in her usual form of straightforward and honest,” Kosene said. “We had a great conversation. Even though she gave a lot of interviews over the years to news outlets or podcasts, it wasn’t the same as having a frank conversation with my own mother. I was asking her unique questions that others maybe didn’t know her well enough to ask. She was more candid with me, even more than interviewers that she had known for a long time. It was a unique interview and adds a unique dimension to the film.”
Noel died after a two-year battle with cancer at the age of 74 at her Zionsville home.
“Her story of her becoming N.A. Noel from childhood to well-known artist is shown here more interestingly than it had been about Nancy before,” Kosene said. “It shows her journey in a unique way with a lot of images that might not have been seen before.”
The documentary also examines how Noel approached her artwork. She created more than 1,000 original works, sold millions of prints, published eight books and established Noel Studio.
“You’re going to get to see more intimate things from her personal life you’ve never seen before,” Kosene said. “But the focus is really Nancy’s relationship with her work and the artistic legacy she left.”
Kosene said Mustaklem, who grew up in Indianapolis, is the perfect person to edit because he knew Noel well. Noel enjoyed dining at Mustaklem’s parents’ Zionsville restaurant, Zorba’s, which has since closed.
“You have to know what Nancy would have approved of and what she would like and what’s true and not true,” Kosene said.
Pauszek is the film’s producer and executive producer.
“This story is important because Nancy Noel touched so many people locally and globally,” she said. “She was real. Saying no to her ideas or adventures was not an option, but mostly this is special because my parents gifted me an original (Noel) painting of an angel boy after my best friend Joe died a tragic death over 10 years ago. Her painting reminds me that my friend is still present in my life when I hear a song or pass an arts event we experienced together. Her work touches the soul.”
