Assaf Gruber

Miraculous Accident
by Assaf Gruber
(29:30, Color & BW, Digital, 5.1, 2025)
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



