Gia, the young Oakland mother at the heart of Savanah Leaf’s first feature Earth Mama (opens Fri/7 at the Roxie before expanding elsewhere), is struggling as she seeks a more stable life for herself and her children. Heavily pregnant, she confronts every day questions of how much or even if she will be in this baby’s life. As the mother of two older children in foster care that she only sees during supervised visits, Gia is fighting to put the pieces of her life together and bring her kids home. Part of that is going to her job without fail every day at a mall photo studio where she styles family portraits.
“I want you to feel her hopes and dreams, and that comes through in Photo Magic,” says Leaf during a recent chat at Berkeley’s Claremont Hotel. “She’s having to work people’s ideas of happy family. It’s beautiful because you also see her creative side; you see how hard she works. She’s not making a ton of money there but there are little glimpses of hope in that space, even in her interactions with these different families.”
“Gia also curates her motherly intuition in those spaces, too, at Photo Magic,” adds Oakland rap artist Tia Nomore who makes her acting debut as Gia in Earth Mama. “Even how she places people, it’s like how you would want your mom to take pictures of you.”
In a way, Earth Mama, which won the narrative feature audience award at the SFFILM Festival, has been years in the making. Leaf, a former Olympic volleyball player and a Grammy nominee for her music video of Gary Clark, Jr.’s “This Land,” wrote a first draft of her script but decided it was too personal. She put it away and pivoted to partnering with her friend Taylor Russell on a short documentary, The Heart Still Hums, that focused on women with children in the foster care system, or who had given up children for adoption. With insight gained from that experience, she returned to her screenplay.
“I had this newfound knowledge but it is less about what happens when you’re going through this situation and more about the different emotions,” Leaf says. “Someone in the documentary says when she gave up her child, her soul was kind of humming and that was a feeling I really wanted to portray in the film.”
When it came to casting, Leaf looked at both experienced actors and people who had never acted before. Of non-actors, she was most interested in people who had some kind of performance experience, because Gia’s role is a tough one. It is emotionally heavy and she is in virtually every scene. Nomore had plenty of experience on the musical stage, but could she inhabit this character? When the women met, initially, it was simply to get acquainted before starting the formal casting process.
“You don’t really get to know somebody in an audition. It was just a hangout and that transformed to the casting session,” says Leaf. “Then we did another thing on Zoom. It was just kind of building a relationship over the course of time, and it didn’t feel rushed.”
Nomore had recently had a baby herself and despite an already busy schedule, she also trained as a doula to see other mothers through the birthing process. She is all about supporting mothers, and Gia is one in desperate need of more support.
“I think all of the things that were calling to me were just waiting for me to pick up the line,” Nomore says. “My doulahood has taught me about holding space simply. It’s not simply like, ‘Oh, I’ll catch your baby for you and I’m make sure your house is clean.’ It’s literally just holding space.
She adds, “Gia is clearly a person who has everything she needs to be a great mother, she’s just in an unfortunate circumstance… The African doula is the original birth worker, truly, and being earth mama—which people call me—it just keeps me constantly reminded and grounded in the responsibility we have for one another.”
Earth Mama also portrays Gia’s inner life, which is expressed in her connection to nature. This is not a film like Blindspotting or other Bay Area-shot films which emphasize the region’s urban life or recognizable locations. Instead, the viewpoint is Gia’s, circumscribed to home in her apartment, but widening when she considers or visits the world outside. Locations included Vallejo and Treasure Island, and underlined the natural beauty of our home.
“I didn’t want it to be a typical social drama where things are dark and moody; that’s not what the Bay feels like to me,” says Leaf. “It’s wild that you have a big city and nature in the same area. It couldn’t be anywhere but California. I wanted to create this specific world that felt like home for me growing up, where I found community.
“Gia’s trying to birth a child in a lifeless place that feels impossible, but she’s doing everything she can to make that situation as best as she possibly can,” she adds. “While she’s also dealing with like the stresses of life, her personal feelings of self-worth, and how does she care for herself in this craziness of life, where she’s trying to just think about her kids, but she also needs to think about herself sometimes and how did she find an escape?”
EARTH MAMA opens at the Roxie Theater, Fri/7. Savannah Leaf and Tia Nomore will be at the theater for a Q&A following the 6:30pm screening on Sat/8. More info here.
