Act I
The dream and the door
The class walks out. The Martini twins walk back in. The Sharpies are born around a single sacred pact: at least two-thirds of the songs will be remixed into modern forms.
Treatment summary
A feature musical film about inheritance under pressure.
At the Midtown Arts School and Academy (MASA), an elite arts school, an eleventh-grade class collides with old Jewish songs in Yiddish and Hebrew and, to honor a teacher's last wish, reimagines them in their own modern sound. The conflict is not whether tradition survives. It is who gets to sing it next.
FormatFeature musical film in development
SettingMidtown Manhattan, present day
SchoolMASA, just west of Times Square
Home baseOyPizza, a Jewish-Global cafe across the square
MusicAn original contemporary Jewish soundtrack
In the vein ofLa La Land
Story engine
The old songs are not fragile. They are combustible.
Joseph Shapiro arrives at MASA grieving his late mother, Rebecca. His deepest memory is her voice singing Jewish songs in Russian, the emotional source of everything he creates. She comes to him in a dream: the songs are the soul of his people, and he must carry them. He opens her handwritten songbook and asks his class to learn the songs in Yiddish and Hebrew. They walk out. Two of them, the Martini twins, return and offer to rebuild the songs in English. The class names itself The Sharpies, after their teacher. Homage and blade.
Act II
The remix and the cafe
The work moves across Times Square to OyPizza, the Jewish-Global cafe that becomes the ensemble's home base. Between a daily open mic and spelling bee and the weekly OyPizza Has Talent, The Sharpies turn klezmer into hip-hop, a wedding tune into pop, a Yiddish folk song into a stage anthem. Joseph holds the line. The students bend it.
Act III
Times Square, live
The Sharpies enter the all-American student-musical championship with their show, Jewish The Musical, and win. The finale broadcasts live from Times Square. Joseph rises to stop a song he has never approved, freezes, and sits. Guardian becomes Witness. The crowd joins the closing chorus.
Proof of concept
A ten-minute, AI-assisted proof-of-concept.
Before the feature, JEWISH proves itself in miniature: a concept film built from the film's own songs and their reborn arrangements, bringing the world, the songs, and the key situations to the screen. AI-assisted production lets a small team realize the look and the musical numbers at a fraction of full cost, so financiers see and hear exactly what the feature will be. The finished English recordings are produced alongside it, and it doubles as a standalone concept film or, if a smaller first step is preferred, the first contained production unit.
The crossing
Two rooms. One square. The film lives at OyPizza.
The Crossing is the film's central metaphor: inherited culture leaving the protected room to become public and alive. MASA sits just west of Times Square, OyPizza just east, and the students cross the square twice a day all year. Two rooms hold two mothers: Rebecca Shapiro feeds with songs, Kate Miller with food. The story begins at MASA but lives at OyPizza, the ensemble's home base, where nearly every scene happens, and the square they cross becomes the stage of the championship finale.
West side, the spark
MASA
The institutional room: discipline, preservation, the fear of getting it wrong. Joseph begins here, sure the songs need protection.
East side, the heart
OyPizza
The public room and the film's main location: a Jewish-Global cafe with a daily open mic, a weekly OyPizza Has Talent, and a line out the door. Like Central Perk in Friends, it is where the ensemble lives, because music needs listeners.
Tone
Remix, not just remember.
Premium, musical, funny, emotionally direct. Grief and comedy at the same table; reverence and rebellion in the same chorus. Music is responsibility, not decoration.
Built in the vein of La La Land, JEWISH extends into soundtrack, education materials, live performance, and community events without losing the story at its center.
The Sharpies
An eleventh-grade class, mixed and undecided.
The students name themselves The Sharpies, after their teacher Joseph Shapiro. Homage and blade. The class is mixed and largely not Jewish, twelve voices from many backgrounds, each meeting the songbook on their own terms. Around them stand Joseph, the cafe family Guy and Kate Miller, benefactor Bunny Montgomery, and the circle that holds the room together.