"Footprints of an Angel," a feature film set for release on Vimeo on Saturday, was adapted from a play written in 2019 after the death of his mother by Tramar Pettaway, a Southampton native with strong family ties to East Hampton. Mr. Pettaway is also an associate producer of the film, which is directed and produced by Anthony Mealing.
The film centers around Claudette, a woman who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness but continues to be a rock of support for her son and other family and friends. The idea came to Mr. Pettaway while he was alone with his mother in the I.C.U. He imagined a cousin, no longer living, entreating his mother to join her, saying, "Nana's waiting for you, come on, come on."
"Everybody was waiting for her to come to heaven so they could be reunited," said Mr. Pettaway during a Zoom conversation. "So I wrote the play. Anthony Mealing, who is a screenwriter, had seen the first play I wrote on Facebook. So I reached out to him." Mr. Mealing wound up adapting it into a screenplay.
Mr. Pettaway had plans to film the script with some friends at Five Towns College in Dix Hills, from which he graduated in 2019 with an associate of arts degree in arts and liberal studies. But because he decided to finish his B.A. elsewhere, at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, the plans were put on hold.
When Mr. Mealing decided he wanted to make the film himself, Mr. Pettaway called it "a blessing," but he told the director he would only agree if some of the same people he'd contacted when he'd planned to film it himself, could be in it.
Among them was Julia Garrison, a close friend who'd originally appeared in a workshop version of the play. Ms. Garrison plays Claudette. Mr. Pettaway also wanted to cast the R&B singers Chrisette Michele, a Grammy Award winner, and Meli'sa Morgan, as well as Bettina Pennon, a gospel singer who is pastor of the Galilee Church of God in Christ in Riverhead. Mr. Pettaway himself, who is also an actor, has a cameo.
Filming began in July 2020, during the pandemic, at the Central Baptist Church in Manhattan, and continued at locations in and around New York City.
The filmmakers chose Vimeo, Mr. Pettaway said, in part because "we're just seeing people come back to the movies. We decided Vimeo was the easiest way to give everybody access."
Mr. Pettaway's great-uncle was Lee A. Hayes, a World War II Tuskegee airman from East Hampton. Mr. Hayes was a member of a large family that grew up on Town Lane, around the corner from what is now the Lt. Lee A. Hayes Youth Park in Amagansett. East Hampton Town dedicated the park to him in 2021.
Last year, on the weekend of Juneteenth, the town unveiled a memorial plaque along with a kiosk celebrating Mr. Hayes's life. A contingent from the Tuskegee Airmen Motorcycle Club led family members, including Mr. Pettaway, from the American Legion Post #419 to the youth park for the unveiling.
Mr. Pettaway, who is also a vocalist, is currently working on an album to be called "A Walk Down Black Broadway," on which he covers songs from such musicals as "The Wiz," "Dreamgirls," "Purlie," and "Your Arms Too Short to Box with God."
"I'm excited for my East Hampton family to see the film," he said. "They'd better bring some tissues."
