Sister Lakes native Jessi Hannapel is proud to declare herself one of the 10 people on the planet who still buys new movies on DVD.

While most people are content with watching new releases on internet streaming services like Netflix or Amazon Video, Hannapel said she cannot live without all the extras that studios cram into physical film releases, such as mini-documentaries about the production of the movie or commentary tracks from the film’s director or actors.

“I want to see the thought process that goes into the film,” she said. “I love not just watching movies, but seeing how the filmmakers tell their stories.”

For the 24-year-old, learning about the art of filmmaking is not just a hobby. It is research for her profession.

Last week, at her church, Sacred Heart of Mary, Hannapel returned to her hometown for Thanksgiving. On Sunday, she hosted a special screening , of the movie she and two other dedicated filmmakers traveled halfway across the world to bring to life: a documentary about the Bosnian town of Medjugorje, titled “Apparition Hill.”

The independent movie, released in 2016, follows the stories of seven people — two atheists, one believer, a mother struggling with cancer, a man diagnosed with ALS, a struggling addict, and a woman questioning her faith — who traveled to the Eastern European village, where the vision of the Virgin Mary was once said to have appeared in 1981, in the summer of 2015.

Although the movie contains some religious overtones, given the subject, the film is more about the experience of the seven strangers’ adventure and how, in spite of their differences, they could come together and bond over the course of the journey, said Hannapel, one of the film’s co-producers and editors.

For the Sister Lakes native, getting the chance to fly overseas to help create the movie fulfilled her childhood dream of filmmaking, she said.

Hannapel, who grew up as the middle child of five siblings, said she was first inspired to become a filmmaker after watching the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean” when she was 12. The movie’s many different elements, from the swashbuckling action on the high seas to the horror of the undead antagonists, blew her away at the time, Hannapel said.

“I was just sitting in my living room, but I felt like I was on this great adventure,” Hannapel said. “I knew then that is what I wanted to do. I felt like I wanted to be part of that experience.”

She re-watched the movie hundreds of times over the next several months, and, through watching the different special features on the DVD, got a taste for the artistry behind filmmaking.

After graduating from Lake Michigan Catholic High School in St. Joseph in 2011, Hannapel spent a year studying at Olivet Nazarene University outside Chicago before moving back home to attend classes at Southwestern Michigan College the following year.

After finishing up at the Dowagiac community college, she moved back to The Windy City to study film and media production at Loyola University.

Near the end of her final semester at the school in 2015, Hannapel received a call from her mother, who told her she had read that a group of independent filmmakers with a company called Stella Mar Films would be traveling overseas to do a film about the Virgin Mary sightings in Medjugorje. Later that evening, around midnight, Hannapel decided to take a shot and email the filmmakers to see if they were interested in any help with the project.

As it turned out, they did need help: immediately, in Chicago.

The next day, Hannapel was given an assignment to interview one of the travelers in their upcoming movie, a recovering drug addict, who was in the city at the time.

After graduating from school, Hannapel traveled to Bosnia with Sean Bloomfield and Cimela Kidonakis, the founders of the production company, to film the seven subjects on their trip. The crew spent 10 days overseas, returning stateside just before the Fourth of July, Hannapel said.

In January 2016, Hannapel traveled to Florida to begin editing the movie, a process that took around five months, she said. In May, the filmmakers debuted “Apparition Hill” in select theaters. The final product drew critical acclaim — and even tears, from some audience members — following the premiere, and was considered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Oscar nomination, Hannapel said.

“That is what I wanted to do with my career, to affect people and show them a new perspective,” she said. “The fact we were able to do that has been so rewarding for me.”

Later this week, Hannapel said she will be traveling back to Florida to begin editing a follow-up film to “Apparition Hill,” this time about a group of young people who traveled to Medjugorje that they filmed shortly after their first visit to the country in 2015. She and the rest of the Stella Mar Films crews are also putting together a documentary about the 2016 murder of a Florida Catholic priest, who, years before his untimely death, created a document stating that, in the event he would be murdered, that the person who committed the deed be spared the death penalty.

Hannapel still cannot believe that her career is already blossoming just a few years removed from graduating college, she said.

“Even though it is all I’ve wanted to do, if you told the 12-year-old me that, at 24, I would be traveling the globe making movies, I wouldn’t have believed it,” she said. “To have a chance to live my dreams, I feel so blessed and I’m so grateful. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but I love it.”

While her career may be taking her around the globe, Hannapel said she will always be grateful for the support of her family, her hometown community and the congregation at Sacred Heart for always believing in her and her dreams.

“[Dowagiac] is still my home,” she said. “This will always be my home. I love this town so much.”