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SEVENTH ART RELEASING

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THE FILM • SYNOPSIS

Trail Angels is a portrait of four legendary yet unsung heroes of the Appalachian Trail.

Meet Baltimore Jack, Mala, Trail Angel Mary and Miss Janet-- four working class

Americans who open their hearts to seasonal “thru-hikers” by performing random acts of

kindness known as “trail magic” for the long distance hikers of the “AT”.

Mala, a Vietnam Veteran

and recovering addict

lives on the AT out of his

pick-up truck with his

beloved black labrador

retriever, 'Tucker Dawg'.

Mala’s “Mayhem,

Madness and Magic”

sometimes means

following a befriended

hiker from Georgia to

Maine offering wisdom

and “cold beer” along

the way.

Trail Angel Mary Parry, formerly

homeless, lives in Duncannon,

Pennsylvania, a half way point

on the trail, the local chicken

“Wing Queen” saves money

working overtime at a roadside

pub during winter. Come

hiking season, Mary spends

her modest savings hosting

free “hiker feeds” in her

back-yard and “cooler drops”

at the town’s trailhead.

THE FILM • SYNOPSIS

Miss Janet, single mom and

long-time divorcee from Erwin

TN, has turned her small home

into a low cost “hiker hostel”.

Her Southern hospitality is

legendary on the trail and the

front porch of Miss Janet’s

House is lined with hundreds of

empty hiking boots turned into

flower pots.

Then there is Baltimore Jack,

the consummate loner-turned-

sage of the AT. His “certain

kind of madness” is revealed

as we hear his tale of hiking

the AT in its entirety eight

times! Even as he wraps

his bum-knee, he shares

knowledge often painfully

earned with laughter.

THE FILM • SYNOPSIS

THE FILM • SYNOPSIS

Through the tender

eyes of these Trail

Angels we witness

how hiking the AT and

the focus it demands,

spiritually transforms

the hikers, people

from all walks of life,

awakening their sense

of connectivity to each

other, the earth and

the moment. Yet the

stimulating stream of

hikers who pass

through the Trail Angels’ lives leaves them lonely and blue during the cold off-season.

Between the hikers’ hope and the angels’ sacrifice, an unexpected picture emerges of an

overlooked

America where

those “out

of step” with

the mainstream

create a linear

community

based on

kindness that

stretches 2200

miles up the

East Coast.

THE FILM • DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

A few months after completing my first feature film, The Aggressives, a friend and amateur outdoorsman invited me hiking in New Hampshire. After five years of exploringthe bowels of the inner city submerged in a little known lesbian urban subculture, I waseager for some tree time far from the throbbing boroughs.

A few days later, in my sneakers, I joined my Patagonia outfitted buddy at the base ofMount Washington, elevation 6,288 feet. Our sylvan stroll quickly gave way to a steepincline. It started to snow. By the time we took a break for lunch I could no longer feel myfingers. We passed the tree line and the temperature dropped drastically. The windwhipped snow into blinding billows around me. My friend urged me onward insisting wesummit. Soon I found myself sprawled on an icy sheet, pulling myself along on juttingrocks as I tried not to look below. “You probably should have crampons!” my friend shouted through the wind. I saw my life flash before me, and I wondered what cramponswere.

Six hours later, on the drive back from the hike, exhausted and steaming off sweat, Myfriend continued “We really weren’t prepared properly. People die up there like that. Ithought we might need a Trail Angel to save us”. It was the first time I had heard the termTrail Angel. Images of winged liaisons for the divine comforted my mind. But my friendexplained Trail Angels were really just simple folks helping hikers. In a posttraumatic sortof haze, I realized I had my next subject for a film and a perfect excuse to get out of NYC.Jokingly my friend agreed to produce.

Four years later we bring you Trail Angels. You don’t have to know what crampons are toenjoy this film. Even if you have never set foot on the Appalachian Trail you’ll be inspiredby those who choose to set aside six months of their lives to hike all 2175 miles of it. Buteven more uplifting are those unsung heroes, the Trail Angels themselves, who organizetheir lives around helping these “thru hikers”. Witness the transformative and cyclicaleffect of hikers who reconnect with nature through the trail and angels who reconnect withsociety through the hikers-- forming an unexpected linear community based on the ethicsof reciprocity that stretches up the East Coast through the backwoods of small townAmerica. But living by the Golden Rule is no walk in the woods. Trail Angels is just asmuch a portrait of the blues as our subjects display their wounds and sacrifice during thecold months when the stream of hikers trickles to a halt. Now our beloved Trail Angelsawait snapshots from Katahdhin, the summit of the AT, where Hikers stand with outstretched arms and faces beaming joy. Probably they will never see these faces again,but the memory of a good deed transcends and in this triumph, both Trail Angel and ThruHiker are united.

KEY PRODUCTION PERSONNEL

DANIEL PEDDLE, DIRECTORDaniel Peddle's debut feature documentary film, The Aggressives, is considered an important andpenetrating work on gender identity in the modern world. It was awarded the Alfred C. KinseyHonor from the Kinsey Institute in 2006 and has won numerous "Best of" awards at documentaryfilm festivals worldwide. Powerhouse Books published Peddle’s written exposé on the Aggressivesubculture in the book Transculturalism © 2005. The film was embraced by its subjects and continues to engage audiences screening on LOGO, Viacom's channel geared towards the LGBT community.

Peddle spent his childhood in the woods of rural North Carolina. He graduated with honors inAnthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended graduate filmschool at New York University. He has lived in New York City since 1992.

He is the founder of Daniel Peddle Casting a company that specializes in casting models for fashion with an international clientele including such companies as Conde Nast and the LVMHgroup. Peddle is represented as an artist by Envoy Gallery in NY. His wordless book, Snowday,was published in 2000 by Doubleday.

CHRIS HOOVER, PRODUCERChris Hoover has a diverse background in production ranging from film / video production to eventproduction to art installation planning and production. Hoover’s production credits include Swoon(production manager) by Tom Kalin, Postcards from America (assistant director) by SteveMcLean, I’ll Be Your Mirror (production coordinator) by Nan Goldin, and as a producer for FastTrip, Long Drop (theatrically released in the US and France), Junk by Roddy Bogawa, Dresden byBen Speth, and Afraid of Everything by David Barker. Dresden and Afraid of Everything premieredat the Sundance Film Festival. Corporate video clients include Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Vanity Fair,Food & Wine, Van Cleef & Arpels, Carolina Herrera, Christian Dior and others.

Hoover was the director of an independent distribution program, Drift Releasing, specializing inEuropean independent films, distributing Jean-Luc Godard's work among others. As principal inNoon Pictures, Hoover produced over a dozen films including feature films that appeared in competition in numerous international film festival (Sundance, Berlin, Rotterdam, Melbourne).

Hoover is currently working on The Chill of Lonesome, a film portrait of bluegrass performer Ernie Thacker.

KARIM LOPEZ, EDITORKarim López is a writer, activist, youth-worker and editor/filmmaker from Brooklyn, New York. His films have screened at festivals all over the country, including: the Brooklyn Arts Council Int'l,San Francisco Int'l, Rooftop Film Festival and the H20 Int'l film festival.

López is a member of La Lutta New Media Collective and Mayfirst/People-Link, two of the leadingprogressive media and internet organizations in the country, and he was a panelist for the 42ndBrooklyn Arts Council International Film Festival. From 2001- 2008, López was an editor atRainlake Productions, an award-winning documentary and television production company. He now works as a freelance editor, producer and camera-person. He is currently working on several short and feature-length screenplays.

PRODUCTION CREDITS

WRITER AND DIRECTORDANIEL PEDDLE

EDITORKARIM LÓPEZ

PRODUCERCHRIS HOOVER

CAMERADANIEL PEDDLE

ORIGINAL MUSIC & SOUND DESIGNJAMES S. CORRIGAN

ADDITIONAL MUSICNEKO CASE

ADDITIONAL CAMERACHRIS HOOVERGARRET LINN

ASSOCIATE EDITORYVETTE WOJCIECHOWSKI

FEATURINGJACK TARLIN AS "BALTIMORE JACK"

RUSSELL FORSYTH AS "MALA"MARY PARRY AS "TRAIL ANGEL MARY"

JANET HENSLEY AS "MISS JANET"

ASSOCIATE PRODUCERDREW DASENT

POST-PRODUCTION SUPERVISORSKARIM LÓPEZGARRET LINN

ONLINE SOUND MIX & COLOR CORRECTIONGARRET LINN

FILMED ON LOCATION IN

ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA • BETHLEHEM, NEW HAMPSHIRE • CARATUNK, MAINECATAWBA, TENNESSEE • DALEVILLE, VIRGINIA • DAMASCUS, VIRGINIADUNCANNON, PENNSYLVANIA • ERWIN, TENNESSEE • GALAX, VIRGINIA

GRAY, TENNESSEE • HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIREJAMES RIVER, VIRGINIA • STOCKBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS