About Pat
Mire
 Pat Mire is an award-winning
documentary filmmaker from Lafayette, Louisiana. Mire's cultural
documentaries have been broadcast nationally on PBS, the Discovery
Channel, and TNN's American Skyline and have won the highest awards in
the most prestigious national and international competitions including
the Margaret Mead Film Festival and the American Anthropological Film
Festival's coveted "Award of Excellence." Mire and his films have been
the subject of numerous articles and reviews in major magazines,
newspapers, and journals. Carl Lindahl, film reviewer for the Journal of American Folklore
called Pat Mire "an important artistic force at work in French
Louisiana whose camera work and editing are excellent." Lindahl's
review compared Mire to legendary documentary filmmaker Les Blank. "The
second-generation films reviewed here find Blank responding to a call
for a more focused and academically-guided cultural exploration and
mark the debut of Pat Mire, a filmmaker dedicated to intensive,
holistic presentation of specific aspects of his cultural heritage."
Recognized for his creative filmmaking skills, Pat Mire was the only
Louisiana filmmaker to receive a 1991 regional fellowship from the
Southeast Media Fellowship Program that included fourteen states. In
December of 1993, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities honored
Mire with a Special Humanities Award for his film work which has made a
major contribution to the humanities in Louisiana. He was also the
recipient of a 1994 fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts,
which had not given a fellowship to a filmmaker in six years. In 1995,
Mire was called a "Louisiana Success Story" at the Governors Arts
Awards. On May 17, 1997, the Acadiana Arts Council honored Mire with
the "Distinguished Artist Award," which is given to an artist who's
work has achieved national recognition. Pat was in the Leadership
Louisiana Class of 1998. In February, 2000, Mire was
presented an "Artist of the Year Award" in Washington, D.C., by US
Senator, Mary Landrieu.
Mire’s feature film debut, Dirty Rice,
was an official entry at the 1998 London Film Festival where it played
to two sold-out auditoriums. Neal Norman, film critic for the London Evening Standard,
reviewed the film and wrote, “While
the Big Easy, No Mercy, and more recently, Eve’s Bayou have flirted with the
Cajun world, this is the real deal, 100% proof. This is not to be
missed.”
Mire directed “Against the Tide: The
Story of the Cajun People” which was a November 2000 PBS “Pick
of the Week” and had a 49.3% market coverage.
Clay Fourrier, executive producer of LPB, mentions enthusiastically
that Mire's work has led to a number of high-profile projects that have
been aired nationally on PBS, garnering "both LPB and Mr. Mire numerous
awards, including nationally recognized Telly and NETA awards of
excellence."
All of these films highlight "the good things about South Louisiana and
the Cajun culture," Fourrier says, adding that "In his films, Pat shows
the contributions of real people, not Hollywood stereotypes, to our
country. This is the underlying theme of all his work."
Pat Mire was born June 23, 1953 and grew up in a farming community near
Eunice, Louisiana. He is an English and French-speaking Cajun,
busy at correcting stereotypes and misconceptions of his beloved Cajun
culture by presenting an insider's perspective.
Pat Mire Films - 101 Duclos Street, Lafayette, LA 70506
Contact Pat Mire
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