Another year, another batch of swoon-worthy, hilarious, thrilling and Oscar-worthy submissions to Hey Alma’s Hanukkah movie pitch contest.
As always, reading all your ideas was a delight, and it was a huge challenge to select the eight finalists we present to you today. From a babka-filled legal thriller to a “Twelfth Night”-inspired rom-com to a 50-foot, semi-sentient pickle threatening to destroy Hanukkah, these movie pitches cover a lot of ground. Plus, this year marks the first time that one of our finalist submissions was written in a collaborative effort by a temple youth group! If that doesn’t scream holiday spirit, we don’t know what does.
We had to turn away inspired concepts like Sarah White’s “Santa Cohen,” (alternatively titled “Schmear the Halls” or “Sancestry”) in which Santa visits Crown Heights, Brooklyn after learning he has Jewish ancestry via a 23andme test, and Shira Engel’s “Fire ‘Em Up,” a latke-making rom-com featuring an age-gap romance between characters played by Ella Stiller and Noah Wyle. Nor could we advance David Volpov’s amusingly titled “Mariah Carey Is Coming to Town.”
These ideas receive an honorable mention from the Hey Alma team for being wholly original and bringing us a lot of joy.
But only you, the Hey Alma audience, can pick the winner of this year’s contest.
Now’s your chance to vote for your favorite idea — which, again, will absolutely not be made into an actual movie, but will be made into a fun digital poster at least. Once you’ve read through them all, you can vote here. Voting will close on Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 9 a.m. ET. So get voting!!
In alphabetical order:
“DeliKate”
by Leslie Fried
Kate “Katie” Cohen (Sadie Sandler) must return home to help her beleaguered father (Adam Sandler) run his restaurant, Delicious. A former healthy rivalry with another nearby local deli, Gherkins, is causing Katie’s dad some agita.
Gherkins, whose tagline is “We’re Actually a Big Dill” is gaining popularity, thanks to the owner’s (Ben Stiller) young and handsome son, Ben “Benjy” Steinberg (Milo Manheim) promoting the restaurant on TikTok — they gain quite a following, mainly due to Benjy’s good looks.
But when a third deli tries to open in the vicinity of Gherkins and Delicious, will Katie and Benjy team up to try and stop it, or is a little competition better for business? Along the way, Katie and Benjy find they not only share a passion for pickles… but also for each other.
“Dill-Light”
by Alethea Shirilan
Emma (Dianna Agron) and Daniel (Daveed Diggs) are two Christmas marketing executives at the same company in New York City, Balsam Marketing. Also, they’re dating each other. They’re good friends, but not a great romantic pair. Emma’s got her head in the clouds, wishing she could do something more creative in her career, and Daniel’s no-nonsense. The two of them have been told by Balsam’s CEO (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) that Christmas pickles are very in this season, and their company, unable to craft a decent pickle recipe without the help of ChatGPT, wants to buy out a small-town brinery in Syracuse, New York.
Emma and Daniel fly out to that quirky brinery and deli run by the Becker family: Abby (Jenny Slate), Molly (Jinkx Monsoon) and their father, Benny (Phil Rosenthal). Abby and Benny are wacky, overly friendly, loud and open, which scares Emma and Daniel a bit, but once they try the range of pickles, gherkins and cornichons at a warm Hanukkah dinner, they’re smitten with the brinery — and not just because of the food. Daniel falls in love with Molly’s controlled temperament and her ability to manage the zany energy of the deli from the business side. And while Emma won’t admit it, she’s enraptured by Abby’s optimism and creativity.
The marketing execs negotiate with the Beckers, but the deli won’t sell out. Frustrated, Balsam Marketing takes matters into their own hands, and the CEO attempts to concoct a genetically perfect pickle with AI capabilities. What she creates is a monster.
A giant snowstorm cancels Emma and Daniel’s flight home, and cuts the power to the whole town. Over the Beckers’ battery powered radio, news stations report a 50-foot, semi-sentient pickle emerging from Manhattan and making its way towards Central New York, destroying everything in its path in order to get to the brinery.
Emma and Abby, and Daniel and Molly, have discovered their feelings for each other, and Emma and Daniel have amicably split, deciding they’re much better as friends. Benny discovers that pickles are a viable lightbulb replacement, which leads to an unconventional but dill-lightful community menorah lighting. And everyone stays to bravely fight the 50-foot pickle.
Will the Beckers and their new friends save Hanukkah (and Syracuse) from this massive dill-emma? Will the 50-foot corporate pickle be destroyed by the power of love in a human-created recipe and the determination of a family-owned small business? Or will Goliath-pickle conquer David-pickle?
There’s never a dill moment in this jarring but flavorful adventure. Take it home for the holidays on a few select VHS tapes or zoetrope now.
“Freaky Festivus”
by Ari Brattin
Shai wasn’t always a grinch. She grew up loving the holiday season: her entire extended family getting together, the competitive dreidel games with her brothers, the countless menorahs her mom put on display that exceptionally highlighted everyone’s personalities (pan across the piano to see the antique ones with about 60 years of wax collected on them and the new modern ones in the shapes of sports balls and sushi rolls) and, of course, her bubbe’s secret recipe latkes.
She never really thought about Hanukkah and its roll (dreidels, duh) in her life until she moved to Hermosa Beach, California and was adrift in a sea of tall, perfect, Christmas-loving blondes.
When she walks into her ad agency one December day, she sees an immaculate display of Christmas trees, oversized sparkly red and green gift boxes and a larger-than-lifesize Santa flying his reindeer over her desk. Shortly after, she laughs maniacally as she receives the company “Holiday Party” invite, adorned with Santas, reindeer and eggnog. She yells: “Just call it a Christmas party, dear god!!!”
The twist of the Christmas Ham knife is her birthday, smack dab on Christmas Day, and the never ending string of acquaintances calling her a “Christmas Baby.” Frustrated by the invisibility of her favorite holiday, she makes a wish on her birthday candles to experience Hanukkah, for once, the way Christmas is celebrated.
The two holidays have a Freaky Friday Festivus switcharoo and when she walks into work the following morning, she’s stunned to hear “Ma’oz Tzur” blasting on the radio. Her best friends from home start sending pictures of their elaborate blue and gold dining room furnishings and inflatable dreidels on their roofs. She checks her DMs and has thousands of links from her mom for Judaica from every brand under the sun and her boyfriend asking which of the 100 Hanukkah cookie variations she wants from the bakery — not the deli all the way on Fairfax.
Shai is pleasantly overwhelmed at first but soon realizes that the materialism puts way too much pressure on having the aesthetically perfect holiday and she wishes she had her humble, underdog Hanukkah back! Played, of course, by Zoey Deutch.
“Head Trauma Hanukkah”
by Milo Cristol
Noa Hayes had the perfect night at her family’s annual Hanukkah party. A night filled with latkes, everybody she loves and brand new faces. The issue? She doesn’t remember a single minute. All she remembers is waking up in her childhood bedroom after slipping and hitting her head on her parent’s icy Manhattan stoop. The past 48 hours have disappeared from her, and though the doctor says her memory will most likely come back, he can’t say when.
Determined not to let the partial memory loss ruin her first day at a new job, and with a somewhat clean bill of health, Noa heads off to her new job as an associate editor for a Jewish publishing imprint. Everything is fantastic, almost as if the accident hadn’t happened, until she’s introduced to one particular coworker: Dan Pasternak. He’s hardworking and interesting and the kindest person in the city. Well, kind to everyone except Noa. At first, she figures he’s just shy to strangers, but her coworkers are quick to let her know that it is, in fact, personal. By the end of the day, Noa is itching to figure out what Dan’s vendetta is against her. The answer? They met at the Hanukkah party, Noa stood him up on a date, and he’s pissed.
Noa never goes out on dates, so she knows the night with Dan had to be something special. In an attempt to convince Dan she is not the type of girl to fake a bout of amnesia to get out of a date, Noa pulls out all the stops. Her Bubbe’s sufganiyot? Check. A special, handpainted dreidel and homemade gelt? You got it. A doctor’s note confirming her head trauma that absolutely was not forged by her sister? Why, she would never!
But Dan has been burnt before, and is turning out to be as tough to convince as their coworker Marsha’s fruitcake is tough to cut. Will Noa be able to convince Dan to give her another chance without the memories they made or will this Hanukkah romance spin out of control? Starring Alison Brie as Noa Hayes and Logan Lerman as Dan Pasternak.
“The Babka Files”
by Sam F.
With Hanukkah fast-approaching, young attorney Saul Freed is longing for some peace and quiet to cap off a busy fall. But a late night call from Bertha, his third cousin (once removed) presents a challenge that he can’t find a way to say no to.
The mega food conglomerate that acquired the company that purchased his great uncle’s bakery 40 years ago is going to repurpose the name and likeness of “Uncle Bernie’s Famous Babka” to use for their line of frozen lobster rolls. “You can’t let them do this!” Bertha pleads. “The statute of limitations expires in eight days. You’re our only hope!”
Personally, Saul doesn’t mind a lobster roll now and then, but every time his cousin adds a new lament, his mind flashes to stories of his great uncle and Bernie’s most famous saying: “Babka is life, my boy. It’s full of twists and turns and a blend of ingredients that don’t resemble their original shape.” But could he have ever imagined the world of Xanthan gum, let alone industrial dessert conglomerates?
Despite his reticence, Saul somehow finds himself spending the eight days of Hanukkah going between law firms, the local municipal archives and his great aunt’s basement to prove his family’s right to their own story. Will this really be the last Hanukkah with Bernie Fritz’s famous babka? Or can Saul eke out some way to preserve the family’s legacy before the last candle burns and the legal deadline passes?
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Saul, Lisa Edelstein as cousin Bertha, and Mandy Patinkin as the voice of Uncle Bernie.
“The Eighth Night”
by Bari Pearlman
This Hanukkah, the greatest love story is a case of mistaken identity.
Inspired by Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” “The Eighth Night” is a romantic comedy that follows Varda (Alison Brie), an aspiring writer who has given up on her dreams after a series of heartbreaks and rejections. While home for Hanukkah, Varda discovers that her town is hosting hot shot author Duke O’Brian (Regé-Jean Page) for an epic writing contest. The winner will receive a book contract with Duke’s editor, as well as one on one masterclass sessions with Duke himself. The catch? Duke is Varda’s ex and lets just say, the breakup did not go well.
Determined to use this contest as an opportunity to not only prove to Duke (and herself) that she has a future in publishing, Varda decides to enter the contest… just not as herself. Under the pseudonym of Sam Adler, Varda soon finds herself in a series of mishaps as she navigates a weird love triangle with Duke and Duke’s agent Olive (Dianna Agron) (who may or may not be interested in the mysterious Sam Adler), hurries to finish her novel pitch in time and helps her family set up for their infamous Hanukkah party — where secrets and confrontations come to a head.
“The Fairy God Rabbi”
by Bet Torah Nosh Teens
Noah Ruebens (Jake Gyllenhaal) left behind his family and their Orthodox observance to marry his gorgeous Christian wife (Amanda Seyfried) and kill it as a corporate executive bigwig in her father’s oil company. Now, with the company falling on hard times, his marriage failing and his estrangement from his family, he needs a miracle to get his life back on track.
On the first night of Hanukkah, he goes to the local synagogue to pray earnestly for the first time in years. The Fairy God Rabbi (played by Jack Black) hears his pleas and leads him to dig an oil well to tap into the ancient mystical oil that will last infinitely, and guides Noah to rededicate himself to his family, his wife and his faith.
“Swampukkah”
by Zoe Nevins
A talking alligator. A discarded storybook. And a mob of angry, kvetching humans.
Curious alligator Archie (Josh Gad) is tired of the same old swamp routine. Reinforce his family’s shelter. Repeat. Route through trash. Repeat. Stare down humans on their pontoon boats. Repeat.
Everything changes, however, when Archie discovers a discarded picture book featuring enchanting images of small spinning items, strange rows of lights and children celebrating some mysterious holiday called Hanukkah.
Archie rushes back to the swamp, eager to create a Hanukkah for all of his friends in the Florida Everglades. His curmudgeon father (Larry David), however, considers the project a waste of time and urges him not to disrupt the swamp’s perfectly functional status quo.
This doesn’t stop Archie.
More resolved than ever, he rushes into the nearby town of Boca DelShalom… nicking plastic menorahs found outside local retirement communities and trays of latkes from the nearby deli. Using the discarded picture book like a checklist, he brings each item back to his home in the swamp… compiling the perfect Hanukkah piece by piece.
As he continues his escapades, however, he can’t help but draw attention from nearby humans. After all, how often do you see ten-foot gators chomping on giant, light-up menorahs?
As he puts the last finishing touches on his Hanukkah, the angry citizens of Boca DelShalom stride in on pontoon boats to reclaim their stolen items, brandishing fishing rods like bayonets.
All the items are gone. Archie’s home is in tatters. His Hanukkah is destroyed.
Devastated, he retreats into the cold swamp… until he feels a warm glow dancing across his scaly skin. A glow that appears to be coming from his seemingly destroyed swampland.
Archie returns to the swamp to discover a new Hanukkah celebration — one created entirely using items naturally found within the Everglades, most notably, a menorah made of twigs and glowing fireflies. Archie’s father presents him with a new storybook drawn on tree bark, showcasing the true spirit of Hanukkah: the ability to endure and create something beautiful out of nothing… whether that’s from the last drops of oil or from eight fireflies’ glowing butts.
Vote for your favorite pitch by Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 9 a.m. ET!
