A pregnant single mother with two children in foster care fights an impossible system in this affecting debut feature from Savanah Leaf.
Earth Mama is a quiet film, but it never once loosens its grip. Leaf’s feature operates on an intimate register, a level that speaks to its characters instead of about them.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2023
Earth Mama 2023
“A devastating and evocative portrait of motherhood refracted through the prisms of race and class, Savanah Leaf’s auspicious debut feature (expanding upon her documentary short, The Heart Still Hums [2020]) is a deeply affecting work of cinematic humanism. Set in the Bay Area, the film follows Gia (portrayed with immense complexity by Oakland rapper Tia Nomore) as she contends with pregnancy and poverty while longing for her children (who have been placed in foster care) and dodging Child Protective Services in the fear that they’ll take her soon-to-be-born baby from her as well.
Facing an impossible situation, Gia warms to the idea of giving her baby up for adoption, and connects with a well-meaning, middle-class couple (Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Bokeem Woodbine), who could potentially give the child a better life. But a constellation of factors—especially Gia’s own sense of guilt—lays bare the fact that, for Gia, there is simply no way to win. Lensed in richly textured 16mm by Jody Lee Lipes, Earth Mama is both a heartrending film about a young woman grappling with the most fundamental questions of motherhood amid utterly hostile socioeconomic conditions, and a formally sophisticated work that suggests and conjures rather than facilely connecting the dots for us.” — New Directors/New Films
“Any film tackling the petty and punishing bureaucracies of the foster care system risks wading into melodrama or cliché, but Earth Mama largely avoids those rookie traps, and with an unpredictable and fiercely focused actress at its roots.” — Ryan Lattanzio, Indiewire