MOTHER LOAD

EARTH MAMA Olympian Savanah Leaf fashions a feature debut full of grace and grit.

In 2023’s America it’s hard simply to be poor, Black and pregnant

In 2012, the London-born Savanah Leaf could be seen at the Olympics, representing Team GB at volleyball. Fast-forward to January 2023 and Leaf was smashing it at the Sundance Film Festival with her feature debut, Earth Mama. ‘I was always wanting to do more than what my body was showcasing,’ says the writer-director. ‘I wanted to show what was going on in my head.’

Beautiful and haunting, Earth Mama tracks impoverished Black single mother Gia (rap artist Tia Nomore, excellent in her first acting role) as she struggles to prove she’s ‘fit to parent’. With two small children already taken from her and the authorities now eyeing her swelling belly, Gia must attend various classes and reunification programs while still finding enough hours in the day to earn a wage. It’s a rigged system, as Leaf discovered while researching her 2020 documentary short The Heart Still Hums, about five women fighting to win back their children from foster care.

‘It was predominantly Black and brown women,’ says Leaf. ‘White women are going through similar circumstances, but in America, Black and brown women are targeted. In the hospital, oftentimes it’s left up to the discretion of the nurses to call up case workers. And sometimes they drug test people without their consent. People are inclined to target certain demographics.’ And once you’re in the system, it’s hard to escape it. ‘People are having to take anger-management classes even though there’s no proof whether or not they need that,’ says Leaf. ‘Or you might have tested negative [for drugs] for a long time, and you still have to continue doing pee tests. I was drawn to understanding the systems, and trying to showcase what those systems might feel like, every day of your life.’

While Earth Mama is as hard-hitting as you’d expect given the subject matter, it’s also spare and sensitive and more impressive still for locating pockets of beauty. Trees, water, Gia’s pregnant body – all are shot with profound tenderness.

‘In America, Black and brown women are targeted’

SAVANAH LEAF

‘I love watching social dramas but I’m tired of seeing it dramatised in a way that… it feels very commercialised,’ sighs Leaf. ‘I tried to stay away from that, and make it more observational. I also tried to incorporate magical realism to show Gia’s inner world, and her inner life, and what she’s feeling in connection to this lineage of Black women that came before her – and will come after her – and the trauma that she’s been through, and that her family has probably been through, and the beauty in how she’s connected.’

It’s a connection that extends straight to the viewer’s heart.

EARTH MAMA WILL SCREEN AT THE BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL ON THURSDAY 5 OCTOBER AND SATURDAY 7 OCTOBER.