Jessica Earnshaw is a documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work focuses on criminal justice and healthcare. In 2015, she received the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation Fellowship and Grant to photograph aging in American prisons, work that went on to be published in National Geographic, Huffington Post, and PDN Magazine, and receive an honorable mention by FotoVisura Grant. In 2018, she photographed and shot video for an NPR story called “In Iowa, A Commitment To Make Prison Work Better For Women,” which was part of a special series covering discipline and women in prison, and specifically looked at gender-responsive corrections at a women’s prison in Iowa.
“Jacinta” was scheduled to screen at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, which has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
JE: The film is an intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma. I follow a young woman named Jacinta for over three years, in and out of prison, as she attempts to break free from a cycle of addiction, incarceration, and crime that began with her own mother.
When she’s released from prison, she tries to get her life on track for the sake of her ten-year-old daughter Caylynn, who has barely had Jacinta in her life.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
JE: I’ve always been interested in the way patterns repeat themselves through generations, how unhealed trauma is processed by the next generation, and the strong ties that bind families and mothers and daughters together.
When I first met Jacinta, who was incarcerated with her mother Rosemary, I was wrapping up a project that I had been working on at the same prison. I was struck by their closeness and banter, and felt like there was a story within their relationship.
Jacinta is incredibly smart and articulate, and I was curious to understand how she ended up in prison with her mother.
W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?
JE: One of the most interesting dynamics of the film is between Jacinta and her mother Rosemary. Rosemary was a victim of trauma and became an addict at a young age, yet she’s responsible for a lot of the trauma that Jacinta went through at an early age, which set the stage for Jacinta’s own addiction.
One of the things that surprised me while filming was Jacinta’s unshakable love and loyalty for her mother despite the things that her mother put her through. The film does not offer any easy answers for why this is, but the paradox of it has a lot to say about how trauma functions within families, and why it can be so difficult for people to overcome.
I’d love for people to come away from the film with a better understanding of the binding force of trauma.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
JE: The most important and challenging thing for me was to tell Jacinta’s story in a way that was true to her. Her upbringing is not my upbringing — her world is not my world. It took a long time to really understand who Jacinta was; she has a lot of layers and it was a large investment in time.
Going as deep as I went into her world, her history, her family dynamics, the collective memory, I was in some ways trying to understand how the pieces of her life fit together as if Jacinta was a mystery that I was trying to solve — not just for me, but I think also for her. Timeline isn’t the easiest thing to get a handle on when there’s been trauma.
Jacinta and I did many interviews, but my work required me to do broad research including speaking with childhood teachers, elementary school classmates, neighborhood mothers, juvenile correctional officers, attorneys — the list continues.
The challenges to understand her world only made me care more deeply to get it right. It was at times emotionally taxing because, in the end, I couldn’t stay separate from the story. I ended up becoming emotionally connected to the family.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
JE: When I started the film in 2016, I had no funding and paid for the film out of my own pocket — this continued for almost two years. I’m a one-woman crew, so I was able to keep costs low. Any money I made from photography gigs went towards hotels, food, and gas. I would stay in Maine for as long as I could afford, or until a photography gig came up, and then I would drive back to NYC to work, return to Maine, and repeat! Photography jobs are usually quite quick, so I never had to stay away too long.
Financially, though, it was a quite stressful time. In 2017, after a year of filming, my producers — Holly Meehl and Nimisha Mukerji — and I began pitching the film at various forums, including Hot Docs and the Points North Forum.
We met Impact Partners at Hot Docs, and they started to track the project. We continued to film, and after creating a 20-minute work sample and speaking in-depth about our intentions for the film, Impact Partners came on board in early 2018. They then helped us raise the budget of the project through grants and equity.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
JE: I grew up around photography and was given my first camera in kindergarten by my mother, who is also a photographer. In high school, I photographed for the yearbook and actively documented everything in my life with a Sony Handycam and digital camera. I’ve always been drawn to non-fiction and discovered documentaries in my early 20s.
I studied filmmaking after high school, and worked in documentary television for a number of years in Canada. My uncle has worked as a DP and director in Toronto for his entire career on shows like “Degrassi.” He got me my first production job on set once I was out of school.
When I was 26, I moved to New York City to study documentary photography and photojournalism at the International Center of Photography. I felt like I could tell stories easier as a photographer; the simplicity of production has always been attractive to me, as photography requires fewer resources, plus access to subjects and locations is easier to obtain when you’re working solo.
I started working in the incarceration space, photographing issues like aging in prison and re-entry. In prison, the women and men I spent time with exist in such a completely different world, and yet they are down the street from cities and towns. I was blown away by their isolation and desire for connection, and felt that in order to feel their presence in my images, I needed to hear their voices. I began incorporating audio into my projects, which became a multimedia project on Instagram.
Having already had an interest in using multiple media sources in storytelling, it didn’t feel like a stretch after meeting Jacinta and Rosemary to make a film. The way I document stories in photography is a similar process to filmmaking when it comes to research, access. and the intimate connection to my subjects. However, the depth filmmaking allowed was completely different.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
JE: The best advice came from my mentor, Maggie Steber, who was my editor on my Aging in Prison work. She said, “Research a project until you become an expert in it, then forget everything you’ve learned and let your subject reteach you.”
Worst advice: “Stop filming. You have enough material.”
Also, “Take a break. You deserve it.” This advice is very valid and “healthy,” but I think verité filming is a process of discovery, and requires a lot of shooting in order to catch a story as it happens. It was always the moment I turned off my camera or took a day off that something profound happened. It’s like the universe saying “LOL.”
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
JE: Develop relationships with the community around your subjects. I found that the more people I met, the easier my access was when I needed it.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
JE: There are so many women-directed films I love, but to choose one, I’d say “Stories We Tell” by Sarah Polley. I really appreciate the film’s intimacy, originality, how it brought to life the past by creatively interweaving recreations and home movies, and just all the different layers it explored.
I’m interested in the subject of family, and found the psychology she was unpacking around memory really fascinating.
W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you keeping creative, and if so, how?
JE: I work a lot from home, so my day-to-day life hasn’t changed all that much. Now that I’ve finished “Jacinta,” I’m researching other potential projects, which is keeping me creative and busy!
