Southeastern Connecticut, are you ready for your close-up?

The Hallmark movie that was shot here makes its debut on TV on Nov. 8.

As you might recall, this past January and February, several venues around the region were decorated in full Christmas glory. The Red Barn at Mitchell College was decked out for an elaborately festive Christmas party. Norwich City Hall kept up its holiday lights well into the new year. Stonington Borough streets were bedecked with wreaths and bulbs.

It was all for the filming of the Hallmark Christmas film “Holiday for Heroes.”

The public will finally get to see the fruits of those labors when the movie premieres at 9 p.m. Friday on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel, followed by screenings at 9 p.m. Nov. 10 and 11 p.m. Nov. 12. For future times, check the Hallmark website.

Pen pals have a ‘meet cute’ 

The “Holiday for Heroes” storyline is this: A woman named Audrey Brown (portrayed by Melissa Claire Egan, who plays Chelsea Lawson on “The Young & The Restless” and was Annie Lavery on “All My Children”) owns a coffee shop in a quaint Connecticut town, which has a military base and consequently a lot of military families. She’s not only supportive of the military community there, but her brother is serving overseas. She sends him care packages, and he shares one with his boss, Matt Evans, who is played by Marc Blucas (who was Riley Finn in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). Matt writes a thank-you letter. Audrey responds, and they develop a pen-pal friendship. After a year, he gets stationed in the town where Audrey lives. Wanting to meet her, he pops into her coffee shop, where they have a “meet cute,” as director Claire Niederpruem phrases it.

There are romantic sparks, of course, but Niederpruem says that the movie also tells “really a sweet story about how (Audrey) takes care of this town and the military families and how they all come together to throw a big holiday for heroes party for all the families in town.”

‘Connecticut is made for Hallmark films’

“Holiday for Heroes” had a jam-packed filming schedule, with the entire 110-page script shot over the course of just 15 days.

Niederpruem says of filming in this region, “I think all small New England towns have that charming feel, and that’s really what we were looking for to tell this story. So we just had to ask the shop owners, ‘Would you mind celebrating Christmas for one month longer?’” Niederpruem laughs. “They were lovely. We had such a great experience ...

“Connecticut is made for Hallmark films. It’s so charming and has that old New England (atmosphere). It’s cozy. So I think it’s perfect. We had a wonderful experience using the local crew and local cast that we got.”

Both she and producer Andrew Gernhard agree on those points. Gernhard, who grew up in Norwich and lives in Gales Ferry, says, “Christmas is Connecticut, and Connecticut is Christmas. With the classic New England architecture and shoreline feel, you couldn’t ask for a better Hallmark-card-come-to-life scenario.”

Niederpruem, knows New England well, too — she grew up just over the Massachusetts-Connecticut border, in Wilbraham, which she notes is the “home of Friendly’s ice cream.” She compares her hometown to Stonington, which is where a good deal of “Holiday for Heroes” was shot.

Social, a café on Water Street in Stonington Borough, was redecorated to become the café that Audrey owns. The film crew shot in Noah’s Restaurant, also on Water Street, and Niederpruem says they used some vacant lots in Stonington to stage other scenes.

The movie also had a military consultant and shot some scenes at Camp Nett in Niantic.

“We wanted to make sure it was portrayed as real as possible,” Niederpruem says.

Another Synthetic Cinema production

The movie was produced by Synthetic Cinema International. Based in New Britain, Synthetic has filmed other productions in this region, including “A Very Nutty Christmas” starring Melissa Joan Hart and airing on Lifetime in 2018 and the film adaptation of Wally Lamb’s novel “Wishin’ and Hopin’” in 2014.

Gernhard, Synthetic co-founder and producer, says, “I love the way ‘Holiday for Heroes’ came out! It has a great story, beautiful locations, and really pulls at your heartstrings, which I believe the audience wants during the holiday season.”

He thinks, too, that people who are either in the military or related to military personnel will be particularly excited to see it. 

The allure of Hallmark Christmas movies

Hallmark Christmas movies have blossomed into a hugely popular genre of their own in the past few years.

“Hallmark has a very specific brand, and they want things to feel very uplifting. That really comes from the script,” Niederpruem says. (The script for “Holiday for Heroes” is by Todd Messegee, Lisa Nanni-Messegee, and Andrea Gyertson Nasfell.) “I think Hallmark always wants things to feel truthful. They want their characters to be very relatable, so I think it’s about showing the characters in their day-to-day lives and also how they interact with their family and with their friends so that the audience can connect and feel like it can be any town, like the town they’re living in, and the characters remind them of their own family and their own friends.”

Gernhard and Niederpruem both speak highly of the cast, particularly the two leads. Niederpruem says they are both lovely people and are incredibly talented. Niederpruem adds that Egan was in every scene of the fast, 15-day shoot, so she really had to be on top of things, and she was.

Future filming in the region?

Synthetic is currently shooting a movie in Iceland. Asked if the company would be filming anything in southeastern Connecticut in the future, Gernhard says, “Expect something from us in early 2020!”

Viewing details

What: "Holiday for Heroes"

Where: Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel

When: 9 p.m. Friday and Nov. 10; 11 p.m. Nov. 12

For more info or for more air dates: Visit www.hallmarkmoviesandmysteries.com