Lana Jokel's Film Archive Is Heading to Paris

It was the last thing Lana Jokel was expecting.

On opening night of the Hamptons Doc Fest in early December, she settled into her seat at Bay Street Theater in anticipation of the start of “Merchant Ivory,” Stephen Soucy’s new documentary about filmmakers Ismael Merchant and James Ivory of “Room With a View” fame. Jokel, a documentary filmmaker herself, was sitting with her good friend, Christina Mossaides Strassfield, director of Southampton Arts Center when, out of the blue she suddenly realized that her name was being called from the stage. It was Jacqui Lofaro, the festival’s founder and executive director, announcing that Jokel was receiving Hamptons Doc Fest’s Legacy Award. The presentation had been kept a secret, which meant that practically nobody at Bay Street that evening knew it was coming — and perhaps no one was more surprised by the announcement than Jokel herself.

“I wasn’t paying too much attention,” admitted Jokel during a recent interview at her Bridgehampton home. “I’m known for loving my sweets. I’m having my cookie at Doc Fest and sitting with Christina, as usual. Jacqui is talking and Christina took the cookie away. I thought she wanted a bite. I guess I wasn’t paying complete attention and then Christina is nudging me. I hear my name and I go down to Jacqui.

“I didn’t know what to say,” she laughed. “I thought I was just going to see movies. But I was so surprised and really touched by the award … 2024 has been a very good year.”

Indeed, It has been a good year for Jokel who, at age 84, has spent more than half a century making documentary films about some of the most consequential artists of our time — from Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg to Keith Sonnier and Audrey Flack.

“This summer, my whole film archive was acquired by the Pompidou Center,” said Jokel, punctuating just how significant a year this has been for her.

Officially, it’s the Centre Pompidou, Musee National d’Art Moderne in Paris which has acquired Jokel’s full body of work — a total of 22 films and videos, 18 of which focus on contemporary art and artists, starting with “Andy Warhol” in 1973 and ending with her 2023 film “Ethereal: Alice Hope Art.” With the acquisition comes protection, preservation, conservation and technical upgrades of all the materials — and perhaps most importantly, all the films will now be made available for viewing or research purposes and screenings at other institutions.

Perhaps particularly meaningful to East End audiences is Jokel’s 2016 film “A Moment in Time — Hamptons Artists,” which is made up of footage of the many artists Jokel documented in the 1990s as they talked with her about their work and lives here, including John Chamberlain, Strong-Cuevas, Donald Sultan, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Nathan Sate Joseph and others.

“It was very casually shot, which is my style anyway,” Jokel said. “Donald talked about his garden, Eric about his art. I gathered all this footage. Some of the artists were not famous when I filmed them, but they were doing wonderful work out here. You make films on artists whose work you appreciate and find interesting.

“Some artists don’t want to go into their personal lives at all,” she added of what she’s learned about making documentaries over the years. “But Larry Rivers said, ‘Ask whatever you want.’ Either way, I made it clear to the artists that they have to trust me.”

And as might be expected, many of the East End artists she has filmed over the years, like Keith Sonnier, Larry Rivers, Howard Kanovitz, Strong-Cuevas, Audrey Flack and others, have since died — making Jokel’s films a lasting testament to their lives and work.

“Some of the artists are already gone and now they will continue on,” Jokel said. “What would I do with the films? It’s 50-some years of work, literally blood, sweat and tears. I packed up four big cartons and shipped it to France. It was complicated. But what a nice way to know my films will always continue.”

Jokel explained that the acquisition of her work by the Pompidou Center came about through the efforts of Rachel Stella, daughter of artist Frank Stella (who died this past May) and the late art historian and curator Barbara Rose, with whom Jokel collaborated on several film projects.

“Rachel lives in Paris and has seen some of my films. She asked me to go to Paris to speak on my Warhol film and my connection to Barbara Rose’s films,” Jokel explained. “I said, ‘I have to speak in French? I don’t know.’ At the same time, Rachel wanted me to meet someone at the Pompidou film archive, she said they were interested in talking to me.

“I talked to them and said, ‘I’m American. Why should my film archive go to France?’” she added. “They explained that the French are very interested in American art — not just famous artists, but interesting new artists. They said they would archive the films and digitize them, continue to improve the technology, protect and preserve all the footage and all the source material.

“They’ll make it accessible for curators, historians and others who can go to Pompidou Center to watch — or if they want to see more, they can look through all the footage of the artists,” Jokel said. “It’s an incredible way of giving access to the public. It will also allow other museums to screen the films — they can go through the Pompidou for flash drives, etc.”

If there’s one phrase to use in describing the trajectory of Jokel’s long career in film, it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Born in Shanghai in 1940, when the Communists arrived in 1949, Jokel and her family moved to Hong Kong.

“My parents were very affluent. They were considered capitalists. They were thinking it would maybe just be a year or two, but it was not possible to return and my father decided after two years in Hong Kong that we should move west,” Jokel said. “He had friends with factories in Shanghai and in the early 1950s, a couple of his friends moved to Brazil. They said, ‘You should come here.’”

Jokel’s father left China first, and though he checked out the U.S., ultimately he decided to settle the family in Brazil, and within a few months, Jokel, her mother and two younger siblings had joined him.

“I was 12. The trip took a whole month,” Jokel recalled. “We went to San Francisco first and then New York. I was impressed with Golden Gate Bridge and at Times Square, I saw the smoking camel and the Automat.

“When we ended up in Brazil, my father came to pick us up at the airport,” she added. “In a taxi going home, a soccer game was being broadcast and the driver turned it up loud. All we heard was ‘Gooooooaaal.’ I said to my father, ‘We’ll never learn this language. It’s insane.’”

But she did learn Portuguese — along with English and later, French. At the age of 16, Jokel was sent to St. Elizabeth, a nun’s college in New Jersey, and at 18, applied to go to Paris for her junior year.

“It was a wonderful experience and it opened my eyes to art and architecture,” Jokel said. “This was ’58 and ’59. It was great and I didn’t want to come back to St. Elizabeth.”

Jokel graduated at age 20 and soon became engaged to a “nice Chinese boy,” which is what young ladies were expected to do in those days. But she quickly realized she had made a mistake, broke off the engagement and enrolled in art school in Boston instead, where she met a Harvard graduate student. That one she married.

“I was not happy. He was a Frenchman, very intelligent and handsome, but I realized he had a superiority complex and was very arrogant,” Jokel said. “I was only 23, I decided I’m not going to have any children. I’m not happy and by the third year, I knew I had to get out of it and I divorced him.”

Then in 1968, Jokel made a decision that would change her life — she moved to New York City.

“Everything was happening in art there,” Jokel explained. “I walked into Max’s Kansas City with a good friend of mine from Cambridge; from the back room I heard someone call, ‘Hey, Lana.’ It was Bob Neuwirth, Bob Dylan’s road manager. He knew me from Cambridge and said ‘Come join us.’”

It turns out that the gathering was a celebration for the wrap of “Don’t Look Back,” D.A. Pennebaker’s new documentary about Dylan.

“I ended up sitting next to Penny, he asked what I’m doing. I said ‘I live in New York, I just finished school.’ He said, ‘I’m a documentary filmmaker and I said, ‘What’s that?’” Jokel recalled. “He said ‘come to the studio and I’ll show you a couple films.’ I saw ‘Don’t Look Back’ and also ‘Primary’ about the election system — that one was a bit over my head.’”

Jokel was fascinated and Pennebaker said he would train her in film if she was interested — she was and that was the start of her documentary career.

“He said, ‘I’ll teach you and I’ll pay you $75 a week,’” Jokel noted. “Pennebaker was my mentor. He had just finished shooting ‘Monterey Pop,’ so we would spend hours watching the rushes of Janis Joplin, Ravi Shankar — I was floored. I used to sync up the footage.”

Her work with Pennebaker soon led her to work for Norman Mailer on his 1968 film “Beyond The Law.” Pennebaker was a producer on the film and Jokel edited it with Jan Welt. Mailer also asked her to edit his 1970 film “Maidstone.”

“Norman was working at Penny’s studio. He was wonderful to work with. He was respectful. His friends would be breathing down my neck and he said, ‘Leave her alone,’” Jokel recalled.

After working with Mailer, Andy Warhol’s people found Jokel and asked her to edit the film “Heat,” which was produced by Warhol and written and directed by Paul Morrissey.

“I went from Mailer to Warhol,” Jokel said. “It was summer and Andy said we would edit in East Hampton.”

That was how Jokel came to know the East End — and Andy Warhol.

“I got to know him well. When you’re young, you’re fearless,” she recalled. “I said, ‘You can be the first person I make a documentary film about.’ He said, ‘Gee, alright.’”

So with her camera in hand, Jokel followed Warhol and crew to Cannes for the premiere of “Heat” in 1972, and on to other stops in Europe, including Dusseldorf where Warhol had a show of his work.

“He was rising to the peak of his fame. It was a wonderful trip,” Jokel said.

The film also incorporated discussions with Philip Johnson and Barbara Rose about Warhol and his work, as well as insights from friends and world-renowned art figures.

“Even though it was my first film, I think it’s the best,” Jokel noted “It was collage-like about Andy’s life and he speaks on camera. That started my film career.”

Thanks to people like Warhol and Pennebaker, connections to other artists followed and soon, Jokel found herself thoroughly entrenched in the film business.

“I’m so fortunate. Jobs would just land,” said Jokel, who moved to Bridgehampton in 1991. “This house used to be a barn. It came from Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. They shipped it here. They said it was a winnowing barn. I said, ‘What’s that?’ They said they would sift wheat to make flour. My father owned a flour mill in Brazil. I’m a farmer’s daughter. So I made an offer the same day I saw it.”

Jokel’s continued presence on the East End after moving here full time gave her the impetus and interest to focus her camera on the community of artists who work here and call this place home. And she has never really stopped since. Her most recent film, made just last year, is about the artist Alice Hope.

So now that her archive is secure and ready for all the world to see, what’s next for the young girl from Shanghai?

“Maybe I’ll do a film about a woman artist — or something not about art,” she said. “I’m taking a break now. But you never know. When I’m working, I’m very focused. This year wonderful things were happening.”