Earth Mama - Sundance
Savanah Leaf’s feature debut about Black motherhood is quiet in its artistry, but its subtle movement and enchanting imagery uncover a world of heartache.
Director Savanah Leaf slowly introduces Gia, a pregnant 24-year-old, who works at a mall portrait studio as a photographer’s assistant. The clicks of the camera capture Gia’s charming gaze at the happy family posing in front of her with their newborn. The facade is quickly broken as the next scene shows Gia’s card being declined as she is trying to purchase mood rings for her two children. An overwhelmed Gia is rushing to her one-hour visitation with her kids who now belong to the state.
Leaf creates a layered character of Gia by structuring her hush narrative to reveal more and more about Gia’s life as the audience follows her along. She sketches out Gia’s life in the Bay Area from locations of uncertainty and limitations. Gia is struggling to regain custody of her kids by working to meet the state’s standards of being a mother in a process that consumes her entire life. Her job is balanced between weekly visitation appointments and court-mandated classes on top of keeping her home for random inspections and preparing for a new baby. So much of Gia’s time is demanded by the program meaning she can’t work more hours to pay her child support which results in her getting in trouble with her caseworker. Gia is doing everything expected of her, but she can never get ahead because of the unfair system built to work against her.
Even though Gia’s life is full of tragedy with the system constantly putting her down. Leaf delicately paints her life by adding surrealism mixed in with realism. There is a connection between Gia’s world and nature that adds a ghostly ambiance to the story. Gia’s anxieties and fears about her children are depicted through cuts of a young naked woman walking through a foggy forest. These scenes are meant to be womanhood in its most stripped-down state where its serene energy disconnects from life’s hardships. The main conflict of Earth Mama is Gia’s concerns over the fate of her unborn child. She worries that the state will take the child away like her other two, causing her to go to the women in her community for guidance. Gia is faced with two options: give the child up for adoption or keep the child continuing a cycle of generational trauma. Her love for her children pushes her to try to find a solution.
Leaf creates sets of paradoxes surrounding Gia’s interior life. The screenplay allows for interesting dialogue Gia partakes with her community of Black women that offer her support. The community is a place of clashes between ideology and values. For instance, one of Gia’s friends Trina’s religion differs from Gia’s lack of faith in religion. The counselor from her classes, Miss Carmen, is an employee of one of the state systems that Gia has mistrust due to its oppression of her situation. All of these are important to understand the challenging landscape single mothers must navigate along. Coupled with a humane performance by Tia Nomore as Gia, Leaf’s directorial vision is full of care.
With warm and grainy cinematography and muted sound, Earth Mama feels very feminine in its sensitive approach to a societal situation. The film takes on an overarching problem, focusing on Gia as its protagonist with no romanticization of her life. Leaf never punishes or villainizes her characters, creating a beautiful space to simply observe fully-fleshed human beings. Gia could find her happily ever after, but Leaf is aware that this problem doesn’t start or end with Gia, it will always be constant like Gia’s love.