Miraculous Accident  

        by Assaf Gruber

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(29:30, Color & BW, Digital, 5.1, 2025)

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Miraculous Accident is a transtemporal film that narrates the love story between Nadir, a Moroccan student at the Łódź 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.

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 how nations, in their cruelty, unveil fleeting moments—miracles born of pure accident, encounters and loves so rare they seem otherworldly. Yet, with the same indifferent hands that created the conditions for these miracles, they tear them apart before they even have a chance to exist.

Inspired by the life of former Moroccan student, poet, and filmmaker Abdelkader Lagtaâ, who plays Nadir in the film, Miraculous Accident weaves its plot through original footage and extracts from 1960s student films by Lagtaâ and his peers.

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Commissioned by steirischer herbst ’24

Produced by steirischer herbst ’24, CASKFILMS, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)

Actors: 

Abdelkader Lagtaâ Nadir

Marta Ojrzynska Edyta

Mateusz Górski Jarek

Dagmara Bąk Archivist

Cinematography       Simon Veroneg 

Assistant Director      Moriya Matityahu

Scenography               Maja Pawlikowska

Location Scout            Janusz Dabkiewicz 

Sound Recording        Maryla Klosowka 

Sound Design               Jochen Jezussek 

Producer                        Guillaume Cailleau

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