Catalogue > At random

Miraculous Accident is a transtemporal film that narrates the love story between Nadir, a Moroccan student at the ?ód? Film School in 1968, his Jewish editing teacher Edyta, and their shared relationship with Jarek, Nadir’s best friend and Edyta’s protégé. Nadir is among a group of North African students sent to study communist filmmaking techniques as part of the Eastern Bloc’s support for anti-imperialist struggles. Despite her opposition to Zionism, Edyta is forced to leave Poland due to the political rift between Poland and Israel following the Six-Day War or the Naksa (The Setback). In 2024, Nadir returns to the school to make a film after discovering a forgotten letter Edyta wrote to him from Haifa in 1989. The film mourns the cruelty of nations, birthing rare miracles—accidental loves—only to crush them before they breathe. Inspired by the life of former Moroccan student, poet, and filmmaker Abdelkader Lagtaâ, who also plays Nadir in the film, Miraculous Accident weaves its plot through original footage and extracts from 1960s student films by Lagtaâ and his peers.

Assaf Gruber (b. Jerusalem, 1980) is a sculptor and filmmaker living and working in Berlin. The dynamic relationship between individuals and institutions is at the center of his practice, which aims to explore both how the political orientation of legacy establishments impact the lives of individuals and how these organizations choose to represent and communicate facts and their attendant artifacts. The absurd biographies of the protagonists in his projects simultaneously reveal and obscure the reasons and motives that lead people to obey or rebel against their inner world or the society in which they live. His photography, sculpture, and installations place the materiality of objects in relation to narrative dimensions, which in turn create fictional spaces where movement and non-movement function as a medium. Gruber’s solo exhibitions include the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2018) and the Muzeum Sztuki,Assaf Gruber (b. Jerusalem, 1980) is a sculptor and filmmaker living and working in Berlin. The dynamic relationship between individuals and institutions is at the center of his practice, which aims to explore both how the political orientation of legacy establishments impact the lives of individuals and how these organizations choose to represent and communicate facts and their attendant artifacts. The absurd biographies of the protagonists in his projects simultaneously reveal and obscure the reasons and motives that lead people to obey or rebel against their inner world or the society in which they live. His photography, sculpture, and installations place the materiality of objects in relation to narrative dimensions, which in turn create fictional spaces where movement and non-movement function as a medium. Gruber’s solo exhibitions include the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2018) and the Muzeum Sztuki, ?ód? (2015). His films have been featured in festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2023) and FID Marseille (2022). He studied at Cooper Union in New York and is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and of the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent. (2015). His films have been featured in festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2023) and FID Marseille (2022). He studied at Cooper Union in New York and is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and of the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent.