Ali, a courageous woman and single mother of two kids, works with the trainer and owner of a rundown box club in order to provide for her family. Ali has the heart of a lioness, is proud, doesn't complain and works herself to the bone for her two children, as a cleaner in Hamburg’s famous nightclub “Ritze.” But deep in her heart Ali carries a wound: after she became an unmarried mother in Romania she was disowned by her father - for whom, until then, she was the Gypsy Queen, the queen of all Roma. When Ali discovers the boxing ring in the Ritze’s basement one day and gets to watch a fight, it brings back memories of boxing training with her father. Fully equipped and disappointed by life, Ali vents all her fury on the punching bag one evening. Tanne, ex-boxer and owner of the Ritze sees her and recognizes her talent. She starts to box again and sees the chance for a better life.

Controlled in turn by Austria, Romania and Russia, Czernowitz was once a cultural (and highly cultured) melting pot with a Jewish population comprising about half its total 150,000. These days, it’s quieter, smaller, less diverse, and again a source for exodus–though now for economic rather than political reasons. Among those journeying back to explore their roots and visit family burial sites are the U.S.-based writer Norman Manea, actor Harvey Keitel (whose segs are the least engaging), a Berlin cellist, and two middle-aged Viennese sisters. Their visits are variably painful or pleasant, provoking meditation on the concepts of home, native language and belonging.