“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 or An-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 an artist and filmmaker living and working in Berlin. His work circles the tension between individuals and institutions. 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 films have been featured in festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2023), FID Marseille (2022, 2019), and the Berlinale (2016, 2025), among others.

Assaf Gruber