The Five: 12.30.24 Edition

Cinema, cinema, cinema and... yes, more cinema.

a cluck-cluck here, a cluck-cluck there; can you bear it?

A new day, a new dawn, and we all must find new reason to go on. I like to wake before the sun rises, fix coffee, and try to determine what the future holds. The light will find us, this much I know.

Today’s HFF Five:

5 New benefits for HFF premium subscribers

4 The many new names of modern cinema

3 On further pondering of our current cinema ecosystem

2 The type of cinema writing I want most

1 Another NYC Indie triumphs in 2024!

And in case you were wondering about one of the 2024 highlights, Vanessa got this one right:

Best Documentary Feature: SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT

And btw, when you get to the end, can you help me out with something?

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Paying for a HFF subscription keeps getting better.

In 2024, I finally refined this sort of links, ponders, and wonders post, but I am not going to stop there. It took me awhile to find this form of “The Five”, but I am pretty satisfied with it and I hope you are too. I needed your input to find the correct length and cadence. And I needed to find a way to use it. It is one of the main things the paying members get the free ones don’t. That is, that and the access to the archive, as well as the majority of posts that are for the paying subs.

One of the reasons I have been excited about newsletters —as well as blogs before them — though, is the community building aspects of them. They still don’t work as well as conversation starters as I’d like them to, but I think there are ways to improve it a bit.

In 2025, I am going to experiment with at least two video chats for the paying subscribers, and that is as a group, not 1:1 (but maybe I should add that for the Founding Members?). I am not yet sure of the form, whether I will pick a topic or just field questions. Either way I hope it remains more of a discussion that flows in multiple directions — you know: a conversation.

Now of course folks can game this by just paying for the month that the chat happens, but I am hoping that most people sign up for the year. To do so, I am still offering 20% off an annual subscription at the 2024 rates if you use this link:

https://tedhope.substack.com/2024YearEndSpecial

The offer expires January 7th, so move sort of fast.

But of course, as always, if you want a subscription with full benefits and feel your financial situation doesn’t currently allow it, just reach out and let me know. I will take care of you until it gets better. That’s what we do in the NonDē side of things.

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