Synopsis

Zhenga, a curious and smart twelve-year-old from Milan, with a shock of curly Afro hair and a personality of its own—known to everyone in the family as Bao, after Baobab—lives in Milan with her mother Anna and father Solomon. They are also joined by their eccentric grandfather Arturo, with whom she spends most of her time. Their routine is punctuated by the typical dramas of this age. One day, however, their Italian teacher asks the kids to draw their family tree. Zhenga, aided by her grandfather's talkative nature, who loves to spin outlandish stories about relatives and friends, knows everything about her mother's side but almost nothing about her father's. Solomon, in fact, fled Rwanda as a child during the civil war and has cut off all contact with his mother and sisters for years, even though they also live in Italy. His family now consists of his wife and daughter. Her father refuses to tell her about his past, but Zhenga, who always feels like she's somewhere between two people—neither black nor white, neither Italian nor Rwandan, neither big nor small—needs answers. So she decides to run away from home to follow in the footsteps of her paternal grandmother, on a journey across Italy that is a journey of self-discovery. She's accompanied by a caustic drag queen, who will bring out an unexpected maternal side; an activist TikToker who alternates #blacklivesmatter tirades with orations in defense of the curly Afro; and Sabato, a professional "ferryman of souls" in the hell of gangmastering, with a passion for heavy metal and puzzles. It's an obstacle course, like a video game, but thanks to her enthusiasm and determination, Zhenga will find the answers she seeks, teaching adults that, to grow up, children need roots.