It’s a ‘Mystic Christmas’ as another Connecticut-made Hallmark Channel holiday movie premieres

Connecticut has known for centuries what a pleasant place Mystic is at Christmas time. Now the rest of the world will get a glimpse as the holiday movie “Mystic Christmas” premiers Saturday on the Hallmark Channel.

The seasonal romance stars Jessy Schram of “Chicago Med,” Chandler Massey of “Days of Our Lives” and Broadway star Patti Murin. Schram plays a woman named Juniper who spends the winter holidays working in Mystic, where she reunites with an ex-boyfriend (Massey) who runs a local pizza place. The film is directed by Marlo Hunter.

“I pitched this story two years ago,” says Andrew Gernhard of Synthetic Cinema International, the Connecticut-based film company that produced the movie. “It was greenlit to go into development then.”

Gernhard made three other Hallmark Christmas movies that are airing this season: “Where Are You Christmas,” which was also filmed in Mystic (though the town in the film is meant to be in Minnesota) and debuted on the channel last week; “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” which was shot in Scotland and Ireland starring Lacey Chabert and Scott Wolf, premiering Nov. 18; and a project he calls “the jewel in the Hallmark crown this year,” “A Biltmore Christmas,” which was made in North Carolina starring Bethany Joy Lenz and Kristoffer Polaha and first airs Nov. 26 in one of the coveted Thanksgiving week time slots when the Christmas entertainment season truly begins.

Mystic’s best-known tourist sites, including Mystic Aquarium, Mystic Seaport Museum, the Olde Mistick Village outdoor shopping and eating area and the downtown drawbridge are all featured in the movie, which also spotlights local businesses like Sift Bakery and Mango’s Pizza.

“The aquarium takes up a huge portion of the movie,” Gernhard said. “We shot on a ship deck at Mystic Seaport. This movie is almost a two-hour ad for Mystic.”

The seaside village is more than just window dressing.

“A seal from the aquarium is one of the characters in the film. We thought we’d have to CG (computer-generate) the seal, but the seal did everything that was asked.”

Locals will notice a few liberties taken by the filmmakers in terms of how long it takes for the characters to breeze from one location to another. Gernhard cites “movie magic” for the geographical incongruities and said he wanted to fit in as many specific Mystic sites as possible.

Between local interest in the filming and the tightly packed shopping district, downtown Mystic proved to be “a hard shoot,” Gernhard said. “We were able to do one day on each side of the bridge.”

He said his company received a lot of support from the local chamber of commerce, area businesses and others. The entire shooting schedule was 15 days and happened just a couple of weeks after Synthetic Cinema International shot “Where Are You, Christmas?” the same month.

Some of Gernhard’s Hallmark movies are films he conceived and pitched to the channel. Others were thought up by Hallmark and given to him to produce. “It’s about 50/50,” he said. “Hallmark likes to work in Connecticut.”

Hallmark made 42 Christmas movies this year, “and we did four of them,” Gernhard said. “That’s ten percent.” Synthetic Cinema International has made dozens of Christmas films for Hallmark as well as other channels such as BET.

Gernhard said he likes to “push the envelope” when pitching ideas to Hallmark, knowing what his company is capable of and how many great shooting locations exist in Connecticut. A Norwich native, he’s wanted to film in Mystic for years. “I grew up in that area.”

The premiere of “Mystic Christmas” is Saturday at 8 p.m. with repeats on Sunday at 6 p.m., Nov. 2 at 8 p.m., Nov. 11 at 2 p.m., Nov. 17 at 6 p.m., Nov. 26 at noon and Dec. 1 at midnight.

The movie will get a live Connecticut premiere at an invitation-only screening in Mystic on Friday that includes a panel discussion with the filmmakers and a closed party at the aquarium.

Hallmark is also planning to do a live webcam stream from Mystic in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The channel does it for only a handful of the towns they film in each year. Details of the webcam have yet to be revealed.

The Hallmark Channel is available on numerous streaming services and cable networks. After airing on Hallmark, many of the channel’s films can later be seen on the Peacock streaming site. For more information on “Mystic Christmas,” go to hallmarkchannel.com/mystic-christmas.