Bush Mama is the first feature film by Haile Gerima, the Ethiopian-born director who has gone on to international acclaim with a series of films shot both in the US and in Africa. The film follows the furious efforts of a young woman to keep her family together while her partner is in jail, in the face of alternately indifferent and hostile systems of discipline and control. Gerima evinces his commitment to a radicalism of both content – as his protagonist acquires a political understanding of her situation – and of form, blending documentary episodes and moments of self-reflexive filmmaking into the narrative.