Savanah Leaf’s tender debut Earth Mama begins with a lady delivering a monologue direct to the camera. “It’s my journey; it’s no person else’s journey. No one goes to walk with these shoes I got on my feet. You may’t walk in my shoes but you’ll be able to walk besides me,” she says. These first lines sit on the core of Leaf’s directorial ethos – a type of cinema that doesn’t intrude or pander to a pitiful type of empathy, but as an alternative observes without judgement.

Set in Oakland, Earth Mama follows Gia, a young Black mother who’s struggling to reclaim custody of her kids from the foster care system while pregnant along with her third child. Because the camera zooms out of the primary scene, we learn that the ladies testifying are from a reunification program for moms attempting to win their kids back from the state. Under this shared therapeutic practice lies a way of punitive surveillance, as caseworkers keenly observe them behind the room. Gia refuses to face and speak, a silent act of defiance as she repudiates a system of hyper-surveillance that punishes Black moms. 

Although Gia is repeatedly told that she should attempt to make the ‘right’ selections to get her children back, she is faced with a system that continuously denies her space to decide on. She will never seem to fulfill the demands of her case employee who chastises her for being behind on child-support payments, despite the fact that she explains she will’t tackle more work hours because of the reunification program’s time demands. Leaf points towards an not possible system, one which appears to be rigged firmly against Black women. Reading along with her son and daughter during visitation, Gia tries to take care of them with the limited time they share together – hugging them and promising that she’ll bring them back home soon. At the identical time, Gia needs to make a decision whether she will support her incoming child by herself again, or whether she should hunt down adoption services.

Despite the heavy emotional centre of the film, Leaf’s sensitive approach refuses to guage or vindicate any of the characters, or paint Gia’s milieu in a dark light. As an alternative, Leaf asserts the great thing about Gia’s world, from the streets of Oakland to Gia’s dream-like sequences in expansive redwood forests. The cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes shot the film in warm 16mm, specializing in the inner worlds gleaned across character’s faces – from Gia’s inquisitive and guarded gaze, to the myriad non-professional actors, young men and ladies, who testify to the camera about their relationships with their moms.

Ahead of the discharge of Earth Mama, we spoke to Savanah Leaf about her powerful debut, from collaborating with Kelsey Lu on the rating to the symbolism of redwood trees. 

How did you make the transition from being an Olympic sportsperson to a filmmaker?

Savanah Leaf: I used to be a volleyball player, that’s what I did on daily basis, eight hours a day. I got injured once I was in Puerto Rico and it forced me to determine what I’m going to do next and what I’m going to do in my next profession. I realised in sports my voice was quite dampened and I didn’t have a creative outlet. Then, I began to go into music video production, and handed out my CV to different production corporations until I got hired.

I believe playing sports and being on set is comparable in some ways. The intuitiveness of being on court and responding within the moment where your body just responds and your mind catches up is like being on set – actors responding within the moment. In a weird way, the environment of being on a team and dealing on a court is comparable within the type of intuition you could have to lean on.

Why did you wish to make a movie about Black motherhood? 

Savanah Leaf: This film has been sitting with me for a very long time. From my very own life, I used to be pondering quite a bit about my sister’s relationship along with her birth mum; I used to be interested by what it’s wish to be a baby craving to know the parent that’s not there and what that looks like. On a wider scale, I desired to explore how Black women have historically been mothering not only our own children but everybody else’s children as well – in America, Black women were mothering slave-owners’ children. Many books and movies about Black women’s experiences often depict the issue of being a Black mother. Before making the feature, I made the documentary short The Heart Still Hums with Taylor Russell which served as a type of emotional research for the film and for the emotions it holds.

I wanted to point out the load of Gia’s expectations as a mother – attempting to be strong and fit all her love and parenting her own children within the hour she’s permitted during visitations, and when she isn’t mothering her own children, she’s mothering her friends and her community – a care that the system doesn’t see. We see that Gia feels the load of it, yet she will’t walk away from it either.

Your film has a documentary-like quality with these interview-like set-ups of various moms giving accounts of their experiences. Why did you wish to include these vignettes?

Savanah Leaf: While writing, I actually wanted to go away space for potentially having forged members and mother’s groups from similar circumstances. We met a few of them through Bay Area organisations specifically for moms coping with children in foster care. Although I scripted a good amount of those moments, we asked people to decide on certain lines they resonated with, and oftentimes, people would proceed telling their whole story, and it was nearly us listening, and this whole group of moms listening. I desired to explore this link between being a mother, and their very own relationship with their moms. There’s generations of trauma that we wish to shield our kids from, yet we see these moms express their doubts and their difficulties in protecting their children, and that’s really powerful.

The start sequence was really vital for me. It is totally unscripted, it’s just Tiffany Garner telling her story. Her line: “You may’t walk in my shoes, but you’ll be able to walk beside me,” is so powerful, not only in how we interact with people, but how we take into consideration cinema and the way our spectatorship. It’s about seeing someone without judgement.

I like the way it’s an empathy not based on this saviour complex of rescuing someone, but it surely’s more about being with and listening and knowing the boundaries of our spectatorship. I like how we give attention to Gia’s present moment too, without giving her a backstory.

Savanah Leaf: I wrote many versions where Gia talks about her backstory, who the daddy is, and I felt like I used to be attempting to justify why we must always care about her, which didn’t make sense. I shouldn’t should justify it; we must always have the opportunity to walk beside her and care. With the backstory, it felt like we were telling the audience what to see and feel. What I like about books is that you simply’re just taking a look at words on a page and also you see these people’s inner lives, and whenever you omit these details, you give the audience the space to create their very own. I wanted to present my audience space to create their very own details and to place confidence in Gia as she is.

The film focuses quite a bit on the surveillance that Gia is put under – whether or not it’s state-enforced classes, to doing a urine sample under supervision, and even her ultrasound visit where she is accompanied by a possible adoptive mother and her caseworker. Are you able to tell me a bit about this sense of constant surveillance?

Savanah Leaf: Surveillance is a extremely vital word. The system she’s in is a policing system. I wanted to point out how Gia is being watched and observed in order that she doesn’t step out of line. That also forms a part of her personality. She knows she’s being watched so she keeps plenty of her emotions inside. She doesn’t wish to yell, or get too offended or throw things or cry or do anything which may show that she’s not fit to parent. She keeps it inside and tries to point out this tough shield, yet we see how difficult that’s.

There is usually a struggle with filmmaking heightening a way of surveillance, how did you negotiate the cinematic gaze?

Savanah Leaf: My cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes is absolutely talented and  we worked out tips on how to create this cinematic language together. Oftentimes we might shoot just one angle in a scene. That might allow plenty of the brand new, non-professional actors to only do the scene once – they only needed to do it one really good time, they didn’t should repeat themselves. It lets you stay in the current moment. We used these long dolly shots to film Gia, where we see and experience her life along with her, besides her as she’s experiencing it, with none sharp cuts to be certain that we aren’t forcing anything on the viewer. 

I actually liked that element of it. Regardless that we used many closeup shots of the characters, the camera itself is sort of far-off, maintaining a distance to respect our actors feeling all these emotions, and never intruding on it. We desired to allow people to sit down in those spaces and emotions in a way that’s observing the motion relatively than forcing motion.

Since the film itself is absolutely heavy, I wanted the cinematography to be light – embracing the heat of daylight, of showing the great thing about the community coming together. It doesn’t should be filled with trauma and darkness! As an alternative, I wanted to point out the softness and the love I actually have for all these people, and hope people come away from the film feeling that very same love.

Although the film is grounded in realism, you introduce these dreamlike sequences within the forest with Gia surrounded by trees and by earth. How did this natural element come into the film?

Savanah Leaf: I used to be leaning into the contrast between the state of being pregnant – this alien thing moving inside you, but additionally this very natural thing. Plenty of moms have done this. It’s this very physical thing. I desired to contrast the natural world of freedom and reference to the cold spaces that she’s purported to mother her children. 

When Gia is surrounded by this natural world, she is surrounded by the shared root connections between the redwood trees and their lineage. Redwoods live in communities and their roots communicate with one another underground. It’s like, have a look at this lineage and history of black motherhood – of inheriting this pain and struggle, but additionally inheriting this beauty and power.

When Gia’s umbilical cord turns into an earthy root that she pulls out, I wanted to contemplate how strange it’s that suddenly, you’re properly detached out of your child. How symbolic is that and the way painful is that?

The rating by Kelsey Lu adds to this natural element, along with her cello and the atmosphere it builds. How did you’re employed with Lu to create this mood?

Savanah Leaf: After I met Lu, she resonated with the emotions behind the script. She got here on board after the editing process and he or she created a composition that was based on the inner world of Gia by responding to what she saw on screen. She created this sort of hum, this longing in her music that I believe is absolutely vital. She made this primary composition along with her cello and little flutters of heartbeats. She got her long-time friends and collaborators to improvise over scenes – Moses Boyd, the harpist Brandee Younger and other wonderful instrumentalists. The music arose as a conversation with the photographs.

Which filmmakers resonated with you while making Earth Mama?

Savanah Leaf: I watched plenty of the Dardenne Brothers film and I resonated with how they stay in the current moment. Their film The Sun really inspired me. Michael Heneke also moved me, taking a look at how his movies often leave you sitting in a single shot. Recently, I watched Alice Diop’s Saint Omer which I loved. The best way she explores spectatorship and black motherhood is absolutely powerful and I hope we proceed to explore these complex representations of black women.

Earth Mama releases in UK cinemas on December 8, 2023