Paper Gems

South Jersey has many young aspiring people who strive to make an impact in their careers and the community. One individual is Christianna Arango, a Film Director from South Jersey.
Christianna Arango is a Rowan University Grad with a degree in cinematography. Christianna works at The Perfecting Church on Sewell as the lead media director, handling the live broadcast of Sunday service and other events.
With a total of 70 people, Christianna and the pastor of The Perfecting Church in Sewell, Kevin C. Brown, Executive Producer, created a movie called Paper Gems. While the film falls under the Christian genre, it has elements of drama that tackle political agendas and societal norms within the community.
The film encourages viewers to make their own choices and conclusions, as the topics discussed are realistic topics seen in conversations and ordinary doubts people have.
Despite not having a large budget and inexperienced actors and crew, the movie comprises residents trained to act and film before shooting the scenes. Christianna credits them for their commitment to the movie’s production, as they all worked hard to make this film happen.
“Organizing shoot days for everyone that matched up between cast and crew, and no one was paid for participating in this film, so it was all raw dedication and passion and God’s grace holding everything together and causing people to actually show up when they were scheduled and all that,” she said.
Christianna used websites to find local actors and held auditions in the church to determine her cast. Many of the film crew had little experience, and they, too, learned as filming continued. The movie proved to be a learning experience for her and those involved.
Many jobs and responsibilities fell to her, but she knew she wanted to make this movie happen.
Christianna faced other setbacks during production, such as reshoots, scheduling, and many rewrites and deadlines. She claimed that working as a director was a difficult task as it was her first movie, and she handled a lot of pressure from both, ensuring the movie was a success and that the people she worked with continued to have faith in her.
“I honestly ran everything and was the leader of every single aspect, and it was a huge undertaking for me to deal with wearing so many hats and being responsible for so many people and things, and it was emotionally and mentally hard but also made me so much better,” she said.
Thanks to her pastor, cast, and crew’s efforts, she used her talents to spread the message in her movie to the viewers. Its success sold out three theatre rooms at the Red Carpet event at United Artist Theatre in Washington Township. The movie can be found on Tubi under Paper Gems (2023).