The baby is gently cooing, nestled in a tiny bed against a cloud-flecked blue sky. Gia, a young woman, is tending to the newborn, adjusting clothes and tickling toes. The camera slowly pulls back, further and further. Soon, it becomes clear we’re in a photo shop, the kind you see in hundreds of malls across America. This is Gia’s job. She leaves the scene, and the baby’s parents take her place. Watching on the sidelines, Gia gently smiles as her boss takes the shots. A mother herself...
- 7/10/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Breakout Sundance star and rapper Tia Nomore has signed with Range Media Partners for representation in acting and music.
Nomore is the lead in Savannah Leaf’s upcoming A24 drama “Earth Mama,” in which she delivered a critically acclaimed debut feature performance at this year’s Sundance Film Festival as a struggling single mother. Well established in hip hop, Nomore rose to prominence as an artist on the Oakland music scene.
In “Earth Mama,” Nomore stars as expectant mom Gia, who already has two kids in foster care as she anticipates a third. Though she has the support of a tight-knit community in the Bay Area, she faces formidable challenges in reclaiming her family and building a new life. A24, the studio behind the Oscar winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” will release the film on July 7.
The film “aims to represent a situation that’s much broader than Gia,...
Nomore is the lead in Savannah Leaf’s upcoming A24 drama “Earth Mama,” in which she delivered a critically acclaimed debut feature performance at this year’s Sundance Film Festival as a struggling single mother. Well established in hip hop, Nomore rose to prominence as an artist on the Oakland music scene.
In “Earth Mama,” Nomore stars as expectant mom Gia, who already has two kids in foster care as she anticipates a third. Though she has the support of a tight-knit community in the Bay Area, she faces formidable challenges in reclaiming her family and building a new life. A24, the studio behind the Oscar winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” will release the film on July 7.
The film “aims to represent a situation that’s much broader than Gia,...
- 6/23/2023
- by Matt Donnelly
- Variety Film + TV
The summer movie season might be best known for its big-budget blockbusters and franchise sequels, but there’s a notable benefit for indie film lovers as well: the films that premiered at Sundance begin to open in theaters. The next few months will see several festival circuit hits open in arthouses, but few are more anticipated among cinephiles than “Earth Mama.”
Savanah Leaf’s directorial debut, which follows a single mother struggling to navigate the welfare state with her third child on the way, was widely seen as the arrival of a bold new cinematic voice on the indie film circuit. A24 bought the project months before it even made its way to Sundance, and a new trailer is offering audiences a preview of what they have to look forward to this summer.
“Earth Mama” is written and directed by Savanah Leaf. The cast includes Tia Nomore, Erika Alexander, Keta Price,...
Savanah Leaf’s directorial debut, which follows a single mother struggling to navigate the welfare state with her third child on the way, was widely seen as the arrival of a bold new cinematic voice on the indie film circuit. A24 bought the project months before it even made its way to Sundance, and a new trailer is offering audiences a preview of what they have to look forward to this summer.
“Earth Mama” is written and directed by Savanah Leaf. The cast includes Tia Nomore, Erika Alexander, Keta Price,...
- 5/16/2023
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Conceived with a remarkable amount of filmmaking confidence, Savanah Leaf’s directorial debut Earth Mama follows the trials and tribulations of a pregnant single mother struggling to get by day-to-day, restricted to seeing her other two children, currently in foster care, only one hour per week during supervised visits. With a history of drug addiction, she must find her way through a system that stacks the odds against her, exploring the possibilities of adoption and the pain of knowing the court may immediately take away her soon-to-be-born baby. It’s a difficult, demanding portrait of a life in shambles, susceptible to being relegated to poverty porn or a social-realistic bent that surrenders to one-note misery. It’s a miracle, then, that Olympian-turned-director Leaf finds both the humanity and beauty of every frame, bringing empathy to an impossible situation and delivering an abundance of grace notes.
Drawing from her previous documentary short The Heart Still Hums,...
Drawing from her previous documentary short The Heart Still Hums,...
- 1/22/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
As movie titles go, “Earth Mama” has a nice ring to it, though “Birth Mother” probably would have been a better fit for former Olympian turned filmmaker Savanah Leaf’s feature debut. Building on questions asked in her award-winning 2020 short “The Heart Still Hums” — an artful inquiry into the social challenges that made possible her sister’s adoption — the helmer turns an empathetic spotlight on the kind of woman society judges most harshly: a single Black mother on the brink of poverty who gives in to her addictions while pregnant.
The system is clear in such cases. Drug use counts as child abuse when a fetus is involved, and automatic protections kick in to separate a newborn that tests positive for methamphetamines from its mother. That’s what happened to Leaf’s sister, Corinna. Ergo, you might expect the director to approach the phenomenon from the adopted kid’s point of view.
The system is clear in such cases. Drug use counts as child abuse when a fetus is involved, and automatic protections kick in to separate a newborn that tests positive for methamphetamines from its mother. That’s what happened to Leaf’s sister, Corinna. Ergo, you might expect the director to approach the phenomenon from the adopted kid’s point of view.
- 1/20/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
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