About the film:
Stealing Baby Jesus
by Terry Dodd
adapted for the screen by Mel Aman & Terry Dodd
Faith or Felony?
Suffering from post mid-life crisis, Warren John, the narrator of Stealing Baby Jesus, lives in the confines of his cerebral radio talk show. Financially responsible to the younger demographic, the station bumps the mildly successful has been to spew his conscience at a later…way later, hour. It is at this hour where he has spent the past long decade, an aging voice trapped in a younger man’s world.
The story is set in Denver – a city quieter than you’d expect for being smack dab in the center of it all - a week before Christmas, 1999. The shroud of what the new millennium could bring, or destroy, muffles the crowds a bit, the hush before the cinematic end-of-the- world explosion.
In the midst of all this, something odd happens. The ceramic baby Jesus in the largest nativity scene in Denver disappears into thin air in front of thousands of people. POOF. Gone. No one saw anything…it’s just…gone. Half the crowd stumbles around with the ‘what the….?’ look, others clamor to their knees, convinced of the divine – the rest, genuinely looking for where it really could have gone.
Lassoing the buzz created by this ‘incident’, Warren John is enthralled by a PR idea that could get him back on the morning commute. Convinced it’s all a publicity stunt by a rival radio station, Warren John announces his big idea to broadcast his radio show live from the top of a billboard, protesting until the baby-nappers come clean. It’s a terrific idea – except that it’s Denver in the winter and the normal weekly blizzard is about to shut down the city. Still, the idea puts dollar signs in the producer’s eyes and he shimmies up to his perch, high above the action.
As Warren John reports on the ensuing rash of Baby Jesus nappings all over the city, we are introduced to his listeners: Warren John’s x-wife Elizabeth who is beyond fed up with her juvenile x-husband, their pre-collegiate daughter Jesse, an aging woman fighting a loosing battle with loneliness – and her son Heath, struggling with his own profound issues of love and loss. The story rounds out with Kitty and Evan, a couple raw from a miscarriage, flirting with infidelity.
Taking the heart from Love Actually and adding it to the Miracle on 34th Street, you will find the touching, deeply human story of Stealing Baby Jesus. A holiday film you’ll want to own and experience every year.
www.stealingbabyjesus.net
***Update***
DENVER, CO, JULY 2007 —The Denver indie holiday film, Stealing Baby Jesus is one step closer for production to begin Winter, 2007. Mel Aman, the film’s Director and Producer, was notified that the film project has been approved for the coveted Colorado Film Production Incentive program awarded through the Colorado office of Economic Development and International Trade. The Colorado Film Incentive program rebates 10 percent of the below-the-line cost of producing a film, documentary or television program when:
• The project is produced and filmed in Colorado
• The production company spends 75 percent of its below-the-line budget with Colorado businesses
• The production company hires 75 percent of their crew locally
See our blog on this for more details!!