Eszter Balint

Eszter Balint (born 7 July 1966) is a Hungarian singer, songwriter, violinist, and actress.[1]

Eszter Balint at a concert, Innsbruck 2009

Biography

Eszter was born in Budapest, Hungary, to Marianne Kollar and Stephan Balint.

Film

Eszter first emerged as a child member of the avant-garde Squat Theatre troupe before making her cinematic debut in 1984 in director Jim Jarmusch's independent film Stranger Than Paradise.[2] She appeared in the 1990 film Bail Jumper. [3] Roles in The Linguini Incident, Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog and Steve Buscemi's Trees Lounge followed.[4] She played Fern in the 2019 film The Dead Don't Die.[5]

Television

In 1985 she made her TV debut in Miami Vice. She played Dorothy Bain in the episode "Buddies" which aired November 1, 1985. In 2014 Balint appeared as Amia, a violin-playing Hungarian love interest for Louis C.K. on the latter's FX sitcom, Louie.[6]

Music

Balint is an accomplished musician whose two releases, Flicker and Mud, both produced by JD Foster, were praised by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Billboard Magazine. In his review of Mud, Jon Pareles writes: "Miss Balint has her own film noir sensibility as a songwriter. She puts arty twists into back-alley Americana... but the cleverness is not the point. She slips inside her characters to project their restlessness and longing."[7]

Balint has appeared on recordings by Michael Gira's Angels of Light, Marc Ribot's Los Cubanos Postizos and John Lurie's Marvin Pontiac's Greatest Hits, Dayna Kurtz, and the Swans. She was a featured guest member of Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog touring Europe throughout 2009 and is featured on their 2013 release "Your Turn."

In 2015, Balint released a new critically acclaimed album Airless Midnight, her first since 2004's Mud[8] again produced by JD Foster. In the same year Paste Magazine premiered Balint's first official music video, "Trouble You Don't See." Josh Jackson wrote: "Paste named Eszter Balint an artist to watch back in 2004 after she released her second album Mud. And while she stepped back from music to focus on parenting soon after, she’s delivered on that promise with this year’s long-awaited follow-up Airless Midnight, which comes on the heels of a recurring role as a Louis C.K.’s love interest in the most recent season of Louie."[9]

References
  1. "Who Plays Amia on Louie?". Bustle. May 26, 2014.
  2. "Stephan Balint, 64, a Founder of the Squat Theater, Dies". The New York Times. December 2, 2007.
  3. "Bail Jumper (1990)". Retrieved August 6, 2018.
  4. "Who Plays Amia on Louie?". Bustle. May 26, 2014.
  5. Grierson, T. (2019, May 15). 'The Dead Don't Die': Cannes Review. Retrieved June 1, 2019, from https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-dead-dont-die-cannes-review/5139365.article
  6. "Louis C.K. Pays a Subtle Tribute to Jim Jarmusch". Slate. May 20, 2014.
  7. "CRITIC'S CHOICE/New CD's; Restless Heroines In Moody Dramas". The New York Times. March 15, 2004.
  8. "Album Premiere: Eszter Balint". PopMatters. June 30, 2015.
  9. "Video Premiere: Eszter Balint - "Trouble You Don't See"". pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 2016-01-22.
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