At the end of last year, the subject line of our annual recap newsletter politely told 2024 to fuck off. Okay, we weren’t even that polite. But we were looking forward to telling fresh stories and energizing our creative community in a new year.

Then 2025 started with a devastating wildfire that turned our home city of LA into a literal hellscape. So, it’s fair to say HV’s goals for this past year didn’t exactly go according to plan. The unprecedented disaster directly impacted our core team and member community. While our headquarters and events space house survived, we’d be less than 100 percent honest if we said we ever got fully back on track this year.

In this regard, it’s remarkable we were able to do as much as we did. First and foremost, we were thrilled to continue our productive partnership with Film Independent. In the “Shoestring Film Theory” series, HV and Fi hosted a round of panel talks with ultra microbudget filmmakers. These fascinating discussions explored the highs and lows of making movies in independent cinema’s last true frontier. We’d like to again thank Roshan Sethi, Karan Soni, Liz Cardenas, Toby Jones, Liz Manashil, Ron Najor, and Elena Weinberg for their insights into the art of ultra microbudget. We challenge any filmmakers to attend one of these events and not come away inspired to make their own microbudget movie.

We also ran our annual 10×10 contest for student filmmakers. The winners from partner schools including Yale, Columbia, CalArts, and UCLA were all invited to attend our Film Incubator program this past summer. In this series of workshops, we teach young filmmakers how to make ultra microbudget features at every stage from development to distribution. Ultimately, the goal of this program is to help them make their first feature, while also fostering a sense of creative community and offering mentorship opportunities.

We are looking forward to working further with Film Independent on events like these and more in 2026! Fi is a great organization, and we encourage anyone looking for end-of-year donation opportunities to consider giving to them. Especially their fund honoring the late Josh Welsh, who was one of the most authentically inspiring individuals in the world of independent film.

HV even took our ultra microbudget filmmaking show overseas in 2025! The Zurich Film Festival offered us the opportunity to host a discussion on why microbudget is the future of independent film (and how to be a part of it). We’re excited to return to Zurich in 2026, with some more exciting announcements around the next iteration of this event.

On the content side, we continued our regular series highlighting hidden gems and overlooked classics. In “Extreme Close Up” this year, we invited our members to watch movies from filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, and Oscar Micheaux, then dive deep into the fascinating stories behind their making. With our “Forgotten Film Fridays” reviews, we highlight movies that even we tend to forget but are definitely worth a second—or even a first—look. If you’re frustrated with the recommendations from streaming algorithms, check out these curated selections for your next movie night.

Especially with our commitment to ultra microbudget filmmaking, we realize that 2025 leaned heavily into the Movies side of the arts. We certainly do not want to overlook our members and friends in Music and Art! We have reviewed some up-and-coming musicians you need to know. One of our goals in 2026 is to even out our focus. Part of this will be through some live events geared toward music and art. HV will also undergo some slight structural renovations to help separate the arts collective from the filmmaking and production side.

Finally, we’re also looking forward to releasing some new original content in the following year. Details for these projects are still under wraps, but we encourage to follow us on social media, sign up for the newsletter, or better yet join the community to make sure you don’t miss any of our exciting new material and live events. 

Header Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay