For members at the Explore category and above, tickets will become available two weeks before the screening date, starting at 10:30 a.m. Additional tickets will be available to members and the general public one week before the screening date, also at 10:30 a.m. Please note that space is extremely limited and tickets will be in high demand.
Earth Mama. 2023. USA. Written and directed by Savanah Leaf. With Tia Nomore, Erika Alexander, Keta Price. DCP. Courtesy A24. 97 min.
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 (the opening night selection of New Directors/New Films 2023) 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.