JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM Director Explains Why He ‘Made it for Families’
By Movieguide® Contributor
At the Movieguide® Awards Gala on March 7, Adam Anders, director of JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM, won the Epiphany Prize® for Most Inspiring Movie.
“Thank you guys. I mean this is amazing because this is really what we set out to make was a family movie,” he said after he received the award for the musical.
“This is amazing. I think this may be one of the only awards I’ve ever won…I’m a professional loser in awards,” he joked in a Movieguide® exclusive interview.
Anders also won a Movieguide® Teddy Bear Award®.
“I love it thank you so much,” he said. “It’s huge. It’s very validating.”
“It was very emotional when it was announced. I didn’t expect it. I was like eating cheesecake, and there’s all these huge movies and…there’s no way we’re going to win,” he said.
Then, JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM was announced, and his surprise turned to anxiety.
“I’m like, oh no, I have to give a speech. I hate giving speeches, but it was very emotional because, you know, so much work goes into these movies. There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears and sacrifice for my family and just years of trying to make this happen,” he explained.
“To have you guys validate all that hard work and also the intention of the movie and what we were trying to do, that you really understood what we were trying to accomplish, was really meaningful,” he told Movieguide®. “So thank you.”
Movieguide® reported on the movie’s origins in January:
“I’ve been a songwriter and producer at that time,” he said. “I sat down that Christmas and wrote an 11-page treatment with a bunch of song ideas and story ideas and character ideas, and that was the beginning of this journey for me.”
Seventeen years later, the movie hit the big screen. It’s now been nominated for several Movieguide® Awards, including the Epiphany Prize® Movies, the Best Movies For Families and the Grace Prize® for Movie Performance.
Anders noted that it’s difficult to be a Christian who works in Hollywood.
“Sometimes you’re working on a show, you’re the only Christian, you know, and that could be really hard. So to get to tell one of my own stories is something that was meaningful to me versus helping someone tell a story that’s not my story or not something that I necessarily believe was really meaningful,” he said.
Other projects Anders helped with include THE PROM, ROCK OF AGES and KALLY’S MASHUP. Moving from helping tell stories to telling one of his own was a huge shift, but he knew he had to do it.
“I kind of just decided, you know…I’ve done other people’s stuff long enough. It’s time to move into telling the stories that I want to tell, and this was the first one, so it’s a huge moment for me,” he said.
“It was very hard to get it done. To get that first one is really hard, the first time as director, you know. There’s all these reasons to say no in Hollywood,” he continued.
“No to a Bible story. No to a musical. No to a first-time director, and we got it done so it’s really, really special,” he said.
Anders felt that his parents, who were evangelists in music ministry, influenced him.
“It was a great upbringing and…I’m one of the only, I guess, pastor kids that didn’t leave the faith or rebel in some way. They did something right. But my faith has sustained me my entire career in life,” he told The Christian Film Review last year.
“I have very much more of an evangelist mentality than I do want to make things for the church. And I think there’s a, you know, huge role for that, but I’ve always felt called—whether it was in music or in TV or in film—to do things that would impact the world at large,” he explained to Movieguide®.
“And so the mission with this movie was how do we frame the gospel of the Christmas story in a way that will attract as many people as possible who don’t know what Christmas is about,” he said, “It wasn’t really made for Christians per se.”
The movie went viral for its music, which became well-liked by Christians and non-Christians.
“It was crazy once we went to home video. We were in theaters for a while, and I think, you know, there was a strike, and it was really hard to get the word out, but then Sony put it on home video and then on Netflix, and people just started finding it…We had 200 million streams in January on a Christmas movie, which is pretty incredible. So it’s really finding its audience, and the message is definitely getting out there,” he said.
The attraction to the movie isn’t just because of its biblical message and music but because of its liveliness and humor, too.
“As a dad, I know my kids won’t watch a movie if they’re not laughing,” Anders said. “If it gets too serious, they turn it off. So the goal was to use the wise men as comic relief to inject humor all the time to keep kids engaged, or for example when we meet Gabriel, you know, there’s a funny scene when we first meet Gabriel, and what it does is it gets kids to pay attention to what he’s about to say.”
“Then, he quotes scripture. So it was always very intentional to use humor to keep entire families engaged and laughing along and wanting to see more, frankly, and movies that get too serious for too long are going to lose the kids, and I made it for families, you know. I really did,” he said.
To Anders, Movieguide®’s support of the movie “means everything.”
“It’s hard to do anything biblical, you know. You have a target sign on you, and many people didn’t get what I was trying to do,” he explained. “But you know, you don’t make movies for critics, of course. You make it for people.”
“To get this validation from you guys—and I respect Movieguide so much, and you know, I’ve followed you for a long time, [and] I’ve had other things nominated—it just is really meaningful and validating. So to have an organization like this validate what I did is just incredibly meaningful, and it makes me very grateful.”
Some people criticize Anders for the way he depicted the Bible story, but he’s reached non-believers.
“I’ve seen the comments from people like on TikTok saying, ‘I’m an atheist, but I have to go see this movie.’ That’s why I made it, you know. I didn’t make it for, I don’t know, Joe and the choir at my local church…He already knows the message.”
“He’s already saved, you know,” Anders continued. “God’s called me to do this and to tell stories like this, to have meaning. My company’s called Nightlight for a reason. There’s a lot of darkness out there, but light needs the darkness to shine. So we’ll just keep doing [it].
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