VARIETY: Slamdance has bestowed its top film awards on Tom Quinn’s family drama “The New Year Parade” and to Greg Kohs’ doc “Song Sung Blue.” MORE
…Philadelphia’s colorful Mummers’ Parade bookends an unsentimentalized portrait of 21st-century divorce in “The New Year Parade.” Winner of the Slamdance grand jury prize, Tom Quinn’s first feature combines non-professional actors with hundreds of actual marching band participants to yield an almost documentary-like look at a family left reeling after the parents separate.
Quinn, who hails from the emerging “Phillywood” independent scene, possesses a strong artistic sensibility and the confidence to build his story around intimate, sometimes mundane life moments as opposed to melodrama. Interest will be strongest locally, but fest play looks promising for this high-integrity project. MORE