By admin 
Joey Katches doesn’t work exclusively on faith-based films, but in recent years, he’s worked on multiple projects in this genre in the Sacramento region.
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Katches, an Auburn resident, is currently director of photography for a faith-based feature film “Zip,” now in production in Sacramento. In 2024, he served as director of photography for another faith-inspired feature, “Redemption River,” which was largely filmed in Placer County.
Sacramento has long sought to attract feature film productions to town. And a number of high-profile mainstream projects have descended on the capital region in recent years, including the Ang Lee-directed “Gold Mountain,” the Oscar-winning “One Battle After Another” and the 2025 homage to the city, “Sacramento.”
But there is also a burgeoning niche in faith-based productions in the Sacramento area, with a network of local film production staff and potential funders amidst a general growth in this type of filmmaking.
“I think Sacramento is a great hub for making faith-based films,” Katches said.
The region’s faith-based film community
Zac Hersh had found work in the film industry, acting in several horror productions, but as a Christian it wasn’t the perfect fit for him.
“I was really struggling with working on horror films and I wanted to do something that aligned more with my belief system,” Hersh said.
So Hersh, who is married, in his early 30s and expecting his first child in November with his wife, pivoted, helping to write and direct “Redemption River” with James Rich, a longtime creative partner. The 85-minute film draws on Hersh’s faith and his roots in the Auburn area, presenting the fictional story of a couple injured during a rafting trip on the American River.
Hersh said the film was shot around Mineral Bar near Colfax.
“I was always going down to the American River and spent a lot of my childhood in that canyon and I always really wanted to do like a survival story down there,” Hersh said. “And so I just wanted to merge everything that I was kind of dreaming about doing in one project with the faith elements and the survival elements.”
Hersh didn’t have to make his movie or find its distribution alone. Some of his crew had worked on “No Address,” a faith-inspired feature film about homelessness shot locally in 2023.
And his good friend Robert Craig, who lives in Meadow Vista and produced “No Address,” helped refer him to Angel Studios, a faith-based streaming platform that Hersh said he has been in the process of getting his movie onto.
“It’s a small community here,” Hersh said.
The approaches to how faith-based films have gotten made in the Sacramento region have varied.
For Craig, 63, it meant signing well-known names such as “Backdraft” actor William Baldwin, “Vacation” actress Beverly D’Angelo, venerable character actor Xander Berkeley and pop singer Ashanti to be part of the cast of “No Address.”
Hersh’s film went with more of a cast of unknowns, though several have worked regularly in secular films.
Emma Elle, who stars as wife Margo in the main couple in “Redemption River,” had uncredited roles in two “Hunger Games” films. Her husband in Hersh’s film is played by Oscar Rudecindo, who had a role in the 2022 film “Falling for Christmas” starring Lindsay Lohan.
Elle’s IMDB page shows several Christian films. Others in the “Redemption River” cast are either influencers or veterans of the Christian entertainment circuit. Hersh noted that Heather Land, who plays Ruth in the film, is a Christian standup comedian.
Finding funders for Sacramento movies
Craig’s “No Address” was part of a slew of related projects including a documentary and a book.
Craig, who invented the Gutter Guard, said he covered all the costs for “No Address” and the related projects.
“The whole thing was about 10 million bucks and I paid it myself because I believed in what we were doing, and I really wanted to do as many things as I possibly could to get more awareness on homelessness, to help those who are experiencing homelessness,” Craig said. “I’m hoping that all five of our projects would really make a difference.”
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“Redemption River” cost a fraction of what “No Address” and its related projects did, with Hersh estimating that “Redemption River” would wind up having cost more than $500,000 to make. Larry Gury, co-founder of California Family Fitness, backed the film.
Gury said that he and Hersh had an association that predated “Redemption River.” They met when Hersh pitched Gury on a non-film-related service for California Family Fitness. Gury backed some of Hersh’s horror projects, though like Hersh, “Redemption River” would take on deeper meaning for him.
Part of Hersh’s film revolves around the main couple having suffered a miscarriage recently before the events of the event. Gury and his wife lost a pregnancy , in 1979.
“I know exactly what this girl went through and what we went through,” said Gury, who is a nondenominational Christian. He became so personally invested in “Redemption River” that his grandchildren are listed as executive producers on the film.
Craig is hopeful about eventually turning a profit on the millions he put into “No Address” and its related projects. Gury said that if he eventually earned back his investment on “Redemption River,” he’d be thrilled.
“I like the message of what we put together,” Gury said.
Rise in faith-based film movement
Hersh said there’d been an increase in faith-based productions with the success of “The Chosen,” an Amazon Prime Video series that has released five seasons. He also noted the success of Angel Studios providing a platform for faith-based productions.
“It kind of recently took off,” Hersh said of faith-based film productions. “But for a long time, there’s just been a community of faith-based filmmakers that have kind of stuck together through the years. And once you meet one person, it kind of leads to meeting the next person.”
Craig also credited the power of Angel Studios, saying that “No Address” had received 320,000 hours of viewing time since it was added to the platform in June. He is in the process of editing his related, 2024 documentary, “Americans With No Address” so that it could be added to Angel Studios.
“They’re growing and they’re looking for movies that amplify light, which is another way of saying they’re looking for movies that have faith in them,” Craig said. “They’re growing like crazy. Before the end of the year, they’ll have over 3 million members and they’re looking for content.”
There are different reasons why more faith-based content could be getting made in the Sacramento region these days.
Katches credited the region for being strong in general for independent film. “There’s a lot of people who have poured a lot of time and energy into making indie films in the Sacramento area,” Katches said.
Jennifer West, film commissioner for the city of Sacramento, attested to the Sacramento area’s draw for indie films.
“I think indies are looking for places in California that can film and not have to go out of state,” West said. “I think that Sacramento, in particular, can double as a lot of different cities or areas across the U.S. and so it’s cheaper for indie filmmakers to stay in California.”
This was part of the strategy for “No Address,” which went with a deliberately vague location in the film meant to highlight that homelessness can affect communities everywhere.
People like Craig are doubling down on faith-based filmmaking. He said he was in the process of setting up his own distribution company, Kingdom Gate Films, and that he would charge 10% rather than the standard 20%.
He said he expects to work with people worldwide and won’t confine his projects to Sacramento area. He anticipates filming a significant portion of an upcoming faith-based production in Fargo, North Dakota. But Craig also praised the Sacramento region as a setting for filmmakers.
“In Sacramento, there’s such a variety of scenery and different types of locations that really met everything that we needed to do in our film,” Craig said. “I definitely highly recommend the Sacramento region for any producer to film.”