A determined young woman embarks on a search for her elusive ancestry in the documentary chronicle The Tree of Life. When her father dies in Israel, director-star Hava Volterra decides to set off for the Holy Land and piece together the tale of her Italian-Jewish predecessors via exhaustive archival research. Her traveling companion on this journey is her vociferous 82-year-old aunt, the sister of her late father. Together they enter Israel, interrogating a myriad of scholars and combing through antiquated manuscripts, all relics of the past. At the same time, the aunt begins to reflect on her own life history and the way in which a compassionate family shielded both herself and Hava's father during the Second World War; she also conceives of a second journey of her own, which will lead her to the family in question and afford her an opportunity to thank them in person. Director Volterra augments the cinéma direct footage of the two women with a number of flourishes, including animations stylistically modeled after Monty Python and marionette shows, which collectively attempt to tell the story of Jewish men in a multitude of trades and meditate on the concept of ethnic identity.