Our cast rocks the socks off Ashland.

Posted by Tom Quinn

April 7, 2008

I’ve spent the last few days in Ashland Oregon and have been kicking myself that I have no photos!! I brought my camera, but never had time to go buy batteries. The mountain ranges are incredible - evergreens wrapping around one side, and grass rolling off on the other. THE NEW YEAR PARADE was awarded the BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE award last night! The awards ceremony was pretty incredible - all of the restaurants around town donated food and there was this insane buffet of caviar and sushi and ravioli’s and craziness. Of course I had just eaten a burger …. As the ceremony ended, our screening was coming to an end across the street so I ran over for the Q and A, able to show off our award in the process. The audience was incredible and we had a good 20 minute talk about the process of making the film. It’s crazy because distributors all say “we love your film, but it has no names” and then every audience we’ve screened for cannot stop talking about our cast after. So this award is vindication for them, that they do have names and that you’ll be hearing them often. The crowd in Ashland is mostly made up of locals, 50 and over, which is great!! So far we’ve mostly been playing for younger audiences and industry so it’s been cool to hear their reactions. So many came up to me and said they’d been deeply touched, or had tears in their eyes. One woman said that she nearly cried when the kids are deciding where to live because she remembers being asked to make that decision as a child, and stayed married for 47 years so that her kids would never have to feel that. Earlier in the day, I had done a panel with some really awesome filmmakers, including Tom from CHRONIC TOWN (Which I went to see, only to find it sold out), Monty from SKILLS LIKE THIS (which I’m psyched to see tonight), and Aaron from The Sensation of Site (which I’ve sadly missed, but we had a great talk about Bela Tarr). It was hosted by Amy Dotson and the topic was Why We Need Independent Film. It was great to hear the other filmmakers talk about their processes - we’re all in the same boat, just built them different ways. Finally, at the after party, I had a chance to sit with Albert Maysles, who I had been too nervous to talk to earlier. His handheld camerawork is some of the best I’ve ever seen - and more importantly what he captures and sees in people is just beautiful. It was cool to have a few moments to chat with him about shooting fiction for Goddard with doc methods. A very generous man who seemed happy to share. We call that a good day. Huge props to the folks of Ashland, and especially the staff of the Ashland Independent Film Festival - all of who were incredibly kind, selfless, patient, and fun!