Miriam Bale
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Homecoming Attitude: Wrapping the 2019 Indie Memphis Film Festival
Last year, after my first Indie Memphis, I penned my love letter to the city and the film festival with a scene from Jim Jarmusch’s own Memphian billet-doux, 1989’s Mystery Train. This year, as if to one-up the experience, the film was programmed during its week-long run (Oct. 30–Nov. 4) with Jarmusch himself present for a Q&A afterwards, in celebration of the film’s 30th anniversary. I don’t have personal ties to Memphis, but neither did Jarmusch when he made Mystery Train, yet the city has a way of touching you deeply; after the screening, the director, now 66, beautifully articulated […]
by Kristen Yoonsoo Kim on Nov 11, 2019 -
Indie Memphis: Not Just an Inclusion Rider
In Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, two rock ‘n’ roll-loving Japanese teenagers arrive in Memphis, Tennessee, and make their way over to Sun Studio, the legendary recording studio once the stomping grounds for the likes of Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, Elvis Presley, who recorded his first song there at the age of 18. In part because of the faint replay of this scene that had lingered in my head for some years, I’ve long wanted to take the Sun tour, one of my many Memphis to-dos, which also included a bunch of famous barbecue […]
by Kristen Yoonsoo Kim on Nov 14, 2018 -
Curator Miriam Bale on New York’s La Di Da Film Festival
New York may have a film festival for every neighborhood, but La Di Da, the brainchild of programmer and critic Miriam Bale, has carved a niche for itself that feels more temporal than geographical. Now in its second year, the festival, whose title is a tip of the cap to Annie Hall’s choice refrain, has expanded upon its foundations as a communal haven for filmmakers creating aesthetically timeless, genre-friendly, and narratively experimental work. In doubling the selection, Bale deepens her exploration of films that, despite being very much of the here and now, feel as though they’ve been unearthed from […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 12, 2013 -
“How the Critics Saved My Film” Panel
Yesterday I attended the “How the Critics Saved My Film” Film Week panel, featuring the pre-eminent critic for the New York Times A.O. Scott (I discovered with pleasure yesterday that his friends call him “Tony”), critics David D’Arcy and Miriam Bale, and filmmaker Alex Ross-Perry. One subject that wasn’t addressed in the panel, but that is pertinent to all of this, is the quality of writing in film criticism. Since I am a filmmaker (whose films will need to be saved), the way a review is written feels important to me, and it’s not just because I like good writing. […]
by Naftali Beane Rutter on Sep 19, 2012
