Earth Mama

Earth Mama is the first feature by Savanah Leaf, a British-American video artist and music-video director who, before turning to film, played volleyball for Great Britain at the 2012 London Olympics. It grew out of The Heart Still Hums, a short she made with the actor Taylor Russell, and was produced by A24 with Film4, Academy Films and Park Pictures. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, was released by A24 in America that summer, and in February 2024 won Leaf the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

Gia is 24, pregnant, and living in the Bay Area with her two older children in foster care. She works, sits through her parenting classes in near silence, and begins to consider whether the baby she is carrying might have a better life with an adoptive family. Tia Nomore, a rapper in her first leading role, carries the film with a guarded, deeply physical performance; around her are Erika Alexander, the musician Doechii as her friend Trina, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Bokeem Woodbine as a prospective adoptive couple. Jody Lee Lipes's cinematography and Kelsey Lu's score give the film a dreamlike undertow that keeps it from becoming a social-issue tract.

Critics praised its restraint and its refusal to judge, with near-unanimous positive reviews. Nomore was nominated at both the British Independent Film Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards, Leaf won BIFA's Douglas Hickox Award for best debut director, and the National Board of Review named it among the ten best independent films of 2023.