Movie making is back in Beaufort. Green light for a ‘Hallmark-style’ Christmas film

It’s almost the season for must-see, nonstop holiday feel-good movies and Beaufort will provide the backdrop.

Even though we’ve not yet arrived at Labor Day, the waterfront and the Sea Islands will provide the elegance and charm for a Christmas-themed movie the director says will be a “Hallmark-style” movie.

Fisher Films, which is based in Lexington and founded by brothers Daniel and Stephen Fisher, is producing the film, which is called “Christmas at Zander Point.”

“Fisher Films loves the town of Beaufort and I believe, ‘Christmas at Xander Point,’ would shine a positive light on your town,” Durham Harrison, the film’s writer and director, said in a letter to the city.

Fisher Films received approval from the City Council Tuesday allowing it to film a scene in Waterfront Park for three to four hours on Dec. 10. The day boat dock at the park will be closed to the public during filming.

The movie and a crew of 15 to 20 people plan to shoot B-roll (background filming) of the city’s landmark’s including the marina, public walking areas at the park and the roofs of downtown Beaufort using a drone device with cinematic cameras.

Part of the scene shot in Beaufort will feature a young boy jumping into a sailboat and sailing toward the historic Woods Memorial Bridge. That’s the same bridge actor Tom Hanks jogged across in the 1994 film “Forrest Gump,” one of several Hollywood films that put Beaufort on the map as a movie-making destination.

Harrison described the “Christmas at Xander Point” as a “Hallmark-style” in the letter to the city.

Fisher Films says it is also hoping to shoot a scene at the lighthouse overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Hunting Island State Park 18 miles east of the city.

It’s the third film to be shot in Beaufort or the Sea Islands in the past year.

“Seeking: Mapping our Gullah Geechee Story” was filmed entirely in South Carolina and primarily in Beaufort and on St. Helena Island last summer. It debuted June 28 at the International African American Museum in Charleston. The museum commissioned the film, which explores the roots of the Gullah people through the eyes of a Black child who sets out to prove his spiritual maturity by embarking on a journey through a sea island seeking self-reflection and discovery.

In January, “Final Load” was filmed at locations in Beaufort and St. Helena Island. It is loosely based on the legendary drug smuggling exploits of the “gentlemen smugglers” who helped launch the career Henry McMaster, a young U.S. attorney at the time who would later became South Carolina’s governor. It’s being made by Walter Czura of Hilton Head Island of Fortress Films.

Fisher Films recent work has included “The Hidden Crisis,” a four-part docuseries on the opioid epidemic in South Carolina, and a documentary called “Prisoner by Choice, the Frankie San Story.” San was a minister who worked as a librarian at South Carolina’s most notorious prison.