When a well-intentioned man learns of his father’s involvement in a racially charged murder, he risks everything to make things right with the victim’s family – and uncovers an even darker secret in the process.

SYNOPSIS:

Inheritance is a drama about Brandon, the estranged son of an alcoholic. Brandon has a good heart, but he’s never been able to forgive his father for the pain he caused their family.

One day, Brandon learns his father is dying. His mother talks him into seeing the old man to make peace before he dies. But instead of reaching closure, the two men argue bitterly, and out of spite Brandon’s father makes a shocking confession – that he murdered a black man in the seventies and got away with it. And another man – also black – was falsely imprisoned for the crime.

Brandon is horrified, and the argument escalates. His father has a seizure, goes into a coma, and dies a few days later – never revealing anything more about the murder. Brandon tries going to the police, but they won’t help him – there’s just not enough information to go on. But he’s convinced his father’s story is real.

His only option is to find out what happened, make things right with the people his father hurt, and free the man still in prison. But Brandon is a photographer, not a detective—he doesn’t know how to find people or solve a 40-year-old cold case.

So he enlists the help of a free-spirited “digital detective,” a cold case investigator named Maya who has solved several cases the police couldn’t crack. Together they track down Jordan, the son of the man his father killed. But when Brandon tells him what really happened, racial tensions boil over. Jordan’s neighbors attack Brandon in retribution for what his father did, and Jordan has to intervene to save Brandon’s life.

Eventually, Brandon unearths evidence that shakes his life to the core. He faces a terrible choice: to share the evidence and free an innocent man, or bury what he knows to save someone he loves. Brandon realizes that finding redemption will cost him more than he ever imagined.

Inheritance. Screenplay. 98 pages. Available on request.

WGAe I286769.