POACH

Logline:
A mountain biking sister and brother find themselves in the middle of a mushroom war deep in the dense woods of Oregon. By day, they ride extreme stunts that are stashed in the forest. By night, they transport illegal amounts of poached mushrooms for their father. When the family encounters Asian gangsters trafficking meth & slave labor, it ends up trapped in a war zone complete with boobie traps, mercenaries and hidden tent cities.

Synopsis:
Edel Thompson (18) is a mild-mannered teen who was traumatized by a childhood kidnapping. She has a keen mind for mathematics, physics and strategy games. By day, Edel and her brother ride their mountain bikes on extreme stunts on stashed trails that they’ve constructed all over the woods. By night, they transport illegal amounts of Matsutake mushrooms for their widowed and embittered father.

For over 20 years, poachers have been harvesting the Matsutake Mushroom from the dense pine forests of the Pacific Northwest. The rare delicacy can fetch as much as $500 a pound on the black market – a market run by the Vietnamese gangsters and supported by a Vietnamese slave labor force in the woods. But Edel has more than dirty money on her mind as she faces a choice between college or a lifetime of poaching. Her older brother guides her to overcome her fears and insecurities. He tries to get Edel “out of her head”, using mountain biking concept of “flow” to get her to live in the moment.

Edel and her brother have managed to walk a delicate line between the future and the underworld of Matsutake poaching, but a run-in with the vicious, armed gangster results in the death of their father. Suddenly they are on the run in the middle of a warzone complete with deadly boobie traps, armed mercenaries and hidden tent cities.

When her older brother is captured, Edel has a choice – face danger head-on or run away. She  infiltrates the poachers’ operation and with the help of a runaway, Vietnamese slave girl named HANG (18), she uncovers the dark secret of a meth operation shrouded under the tent city and must fight to free her brother from certain death.

Poach is a modern day story that is loosely inspired by the Matsutake Mushroom gold rush phenomenon that started in Crater Lake National Park about twenty years ago. A recent article in the NEW YORKER magazine indicates that trouble is still brewing in the area. NEW YORKER MAGAZINE article & an older MENS JOURNAL article on similar mushroom war stories are available for you to read.