AllMovie

Based on the book Ballad of a Champion by Gugliemo Spoletini, this film tells the story of Davide (Claudio Amendola) a young Jewish boxer who marries Sara (Barbara De Rossi) and the two set up housekeeping in the Trastevere district ("across the Tiber") in Rome. Davide's career takes him away to the United States for several years, and Sara has to somehow survive alone with her daughter. Davide's closest friend Cesare (Massimo Bonetti) falls in love with Sara, but politics intervene in his life -- he is put in prison for his leftist viewpoints -- and from that point onward, his future seems dim. As anti-Jewish sentiment rises, the future for Sara and her daughter also becomes more and more precarious.