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Heirloom

HEIRLOOM is an aspirational romantic comedy that follows a young woman who rediscovers herself after inheriting a small plot farm in Sonoma, California. Her journey back to the small town lifestyle is complicated by a love triangle, small business start-up challenges, and a steep growing curve.

All 9 Episodes (approx 92 minutes total) are streaming now on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/channels/heirloomtheseries).

  • Michael Melamedoff
    Director
    Weakness, TruTV's The Problem with Apu
  • Bekah Brunstetter
    Writer
    NBC's This is Us, Starz' American Gods, ABC Family's Switched at Birth
  • Kevin Kinsella
    Producer
    Jersey Boys (Broadway)
  • James Richard
    Producer
    Charity
  • Paten Hughes
    Producer
  • Julie Crosby
    Producer
    Broadway credits
  • Michael Melamedoff
    Producer
  • Paten Hughes
    Key Cast
    Long Nights Short Mornings (SXSW 2016), Charity, Coach of the Year, Beauty Mark
  • Margaret Colin
    Key Cast
    Gossip Girl, Veep, Independence Day, Equity, As The World Turns
  • Tom Wopat
    Key Cast
    Dukes of Hazard, Longmire
  • Ryan Cooper
    Key Cast
    Rock That Body, Eye Candy, Julia
  • Pascale Armand
    Key Cast
    Eclipsed on Broadway (Tony Nomination)
  • John Lavelle
    Key Cast
    Selma, NCIS
  • Project Type:
    Web / New Media
  • Genres:
    Romantic Comedy, Dramedy
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 30 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 1, 2016
  • Production Budget:
    250,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Distribution Information
  • Vimeo
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: Internet, Video on Demand
Director Biography - Michael Melamedoff

Michael Melamedoff is a director, producer and executive whose work has focused on direct audience engagement across narrative features, documentary, digital, and advertising. Michael has also spent the past two years consulting for boutique production company Cowboy Bear Ninja as their Director of Development, working with the company’s founding partners to extend the company’s reach beyond branded documentary and advertising to build the company’s television division. This work recently culminated in the sale of the company’s first ever pilot presentation to Red Bull TV. Michael currently has two other pilot presentations in production with Cowboy Bear Ninja, as well as a feature length documentary entitled SMOKE, following the legendary Mueller clan, the first family of Texas BBQ.
Michael’s feature credits include the critically acclaimed micro-budget features WEAKNESS starring Bobby Cannavale, Danielle Panabaker, and June Diane Raphael; THE EXHIBITIONISTS starring transgender icon Laverne Cox; and most recently the documentary feature VICTORI which the Boston Globe lauded writing: “Exploring the fine line between kitsch and genius, Melamedoff’s dead-pan doc outmocks some of the best of Christopher Guest.” He currently has feature films in development with Frida Torresblanco’s Braven and Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix.
Most recently, Michael joined the board of advisors for the inaugural SeriesFest, a new television festival in Denver, Colorado highlighting independent content from creators around the world while also offering world premieres and special events in partnership with ABC, AMC, HBO, FX, Conde Nast Entertainment, BBC Four, Fusion, STARZ, and USA.

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Director Statement

You have to taste Paten Hughes’ tomatoes to really understand how great they are. At least I did.

For a long time I knew Paten as a young actor, struggling with the challenges that every actor faces -- all the vaguery and vulnerability and vicissitudes -- while also entertaining a producing career as a way of wrestling these uncertainties. When she mentioned she was growing tomatoes I pictured the same tiny urban “garden” I’d seen littered across fire escapes and window ledges in Brooklyn.

So you can imagine my surprise when Paten flew me out to Sonoma and said, “I want to film this.” Paten’s tomato garden, stretching across two sturdy plots of adjacent land, was home to over a dozen breeds of gorgeous tomatoes: tomatoes bigger than your hand; tomatoes you could pop like candy and sweet too; tomatoes in red and brown and yellow and orange and purple. This was not just some hobby or a testament to a very green thumb; it was a showcase for Paten’s grit and imagination. And damn! Those tomatoes didn’t just look amazing, they tasted amazing too.

At the heart of HEIRLOOM is the spirit that Paten carries with her daily as a maker: the desire of someone who sees the world not as it is but as it could be. It is easy to look at HEIRLOOM’s protagonist, Emily, and see only an extension of Paten. In doing so one would make many connections that are true between the character and its inspiration -- Emily and Paten are both gracious, ambitious, and innocent without ever being naive. But in bringing to life the character of Emily, Paten and her co-creator Bekah Brunstetter have landed on something greater than a stand-in for the show’s star. They’ve tapped into the restless, empowering and endearing energy of the millennial generation: a group of young women and men who see a world without fixed boundaries, and who have alchemized this fluidity to create enthusiastic new opportunities.

Directing HEIRLOOM for me was not about making Paten or her tomatoes or Sonoma look great. That part was easy. What I wanted to convey honestly was the joy in discovery that Paten makes effortless. I want viewers to enjoy Emily’s escapades, and then dare to live life like Paten: refusing to take no for an answer; daring to pick up and move across town or across the country or across the world to find new opportunity; and never losing sight of the pleasure of chasing one’s destiny.

And wherever our viewers’ adventures lead them, I hope they get to taste one of Paten’s tomatoes along the way.

- Michael Melamedoff, Director, HEIRLOOM