"(Former) high-school track star Alison Bennett has just completed her first semester of college. She returns home for the holidays, and is finally made to confront the forces that ended her running career and re-charted her life. A bittersweet, sometimes funny, and brutally honest portrait of young people that spans both coasts, 'Before This New Year' explores themes of love, loss, identity, and ultimately what it means to come-of-age in this hyper contemporary world."