Announcing Alma’s Third Annual Hanukkah Movie Pitch Challenge

Send us your best movie ideas, win fame and glory.

What makes for the perfect Hanukkah movie? Apparently, Hollywood still hasn’t quite figured that out. But if there is a group of creative people out there who love Jewish holidays, ridiculous shenanigans and coming up with ideas that will never actually happen, it is you, dear Alma readers. And so, we are excited to announce Alma’s Third Annual Hanukkah Movie Pitch Challenge!

For the past two years, we’ve hosted this contest and have been blown away by the variety of entries. Last year, the challenge was open to all genres of holiday movies, and the winner was Paige Feldstein with her original Hanukkah movie, “The Great Hanukkah Heist.” Here’s the poster we made, it is quite good if we do say ourselves:

Hanukkah Heist
Design by Emily Burack

This year, we’re bringing back the contest and leaving the parameters wide open: You can pitch us any genre of film. It can be about a Jew celebrating Hanukkah. Or a Jew on Christmas. Or a Jew just generally living through the December holidays. We’ll take gritty action films. Epic historical romances. An animated family romp. Or, obviously, you can stick with the classic and give us the cheeseball Hanukkah Hallmark film of your dreams.

Will the winning movie idea get made? Absolutely not. Who do you think we are? We’re a tiny Jewish non-profit that runs a website. But the winner will get fame, glory and a custom-designed digital movie poster for their idea that they are free to brag about until the next Festival of Lights.

The deets:

  1. Enter by using this form. Submissions will be open until Monday, November 29 at 9 a.m. ET. We are looking for the name of your Hanukkah movie and a one-paragraph description of the plot. Take inspiration from last year’s finalists.
  2. On Thursday, December 2, check back here at heyalma.com for how to vote on the finalists.
  3. We’ll announce the winner on the last day of Hanukkah, December 6.

Warm up some hot cocoa, put on your Hanukkah jammies and start thinking up your dream Hanukkah movie!!!

Read More