Earth Mama
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Earth Mama DP Jody Lee Lipes
Jody Lee Lipes likes to ask questions—so many, in fact, that the cinematographer says it can sometimes annoy directors. However, Lipes found a collaborator with an equally inexhaustible inquisitiveness in Savanah Leaf. “Savanah wanted to go through every scene together [during prep],” said Lipes. “I loved it because that’s my favorite thing to do. We would talk about a scene for like three hours. We went literally word by word through the script.” Lipes, whose credits include Manchester by the Sea, Martha Marcy May Marlene and I Know This Much Is True, first met Leaf on a commercial. They developed […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jun 27, 2023 -
Decisive Moments: Earth Mama Director Savanah Leaf in Conversation with Derek Cianfrance
There are two long back-and-forth tracking shots in Savanah Leaf’s wise, emotionally full debut feature, Earth Mama. In the first, the pregnant Gia—a 24-year-old Oakland single mother fighting for custody of the two young children she already has lost to state-sponsored foster care—purposefully strides across a playground, the camera focused on her as she passes expensive strollers and children playing in the background in soft focus. Moments before, she has asked the owner of the photo studio she works at for a cash advance: “I don’t want my baby coming out with no clothes or nothing,” she says. (Leaf cuts […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 27, 2023 -
Trailer Watch: Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama
A highlight of this year’s Sundance Film Festival and New Directors/New Films, the trailer arrives for writer-director Savanah Leaf’s debut feature Earth Mama. The film stars Oakland rapper Tia Nomore in her first acting role, playing a pregnant mother in the Bay Area with two children in foster care who she must fight to regain custody of. Earth Mama also stars Erika Alexander, fellow rapper Doechii and Euphoria season two addition Dominic Fike (who’s similarly a musician-turned-actor). In his dispatch from New Directors/New Films, Nelson Kim wrote: Earth Mama is earnest social realism of a kind that may seem familiar on […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 16, 2023 -
Five Highlights from the 2023 New Directors/New Films Festival
New Directors/New Films, the annual showcase of work by emerging directors co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center, began this week in New York City and runs through April 9. The 2023 slate features 27 features and 11 shorts, most of them culled from top-tier festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, and Rotterdam. As always, ND/NF’s offerings are global in scope, with over 30 countries represented, and the programmers remain admirably committed to arthouse aesthetics: conventional genre films and commercially minded crowd-pleasers are thin on the ground here. This is a festival for audiences willing […]
by Nelson Kim on Mar 30, 2023 -
New Generation: How A24 Is Helping Keep Art Films Alive
A trio of celebrated and highly distinctive breakout movies at this year’s Sundance Film Festival—Raven Jackson’s visionary All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Savanah Leaf’s heartrending Earth Mama and Celine Song’s gripping Berlin Competition selection Past Lives—share a few conspicuous elements: They were all debut features made by women of color, they each display an impressive mastery of their forms and they were all backed by A24. A24 has been celebrating one of its biggest years ever—a record 18 total Oscar nominations and its highest grossing film in Everything Everywhere All At Once—but amidst the genre mashups, prestige star vehicles and […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Mar 16, 2023
