Assaf Gruber
Directing
Biography
Assaf Gruber (b. Jerusalem, 1980) is a sculptor and filmmaker based in Berlin. His work explores the relationship between individuals and institutions, often through protagonists whose biographies reveal tensions between personal desire, political structures, obedience, and rebellion. His films and exhibitions have been presented at the Berlinale, IFFR, FIDMarseille, Doclisboa, Kyiv Biennial, steirischer herbst, BOZAR Brussels, Berlinische Galerie, and Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź.
Known For
A companion film to Miraculous Accident, Forgotten Solidarities returns to Nadir, Edyta, and Jarek from another angle: in 2025, Nadir, a Moroccan former exchange student at Łódź Film School, comes back to Poland to make a film from a buried past shadowed by 1968, where cinema, evidence, and intimacy blur into power, manipulation, and accusation.
Forgotten Solidarities
An artist born in Jerusalem is commissioned by a German institution to create a work of art about another artist – a sculptor celebrated by the Nazis. He approaches the task with a silent film. How does one describe something that is, by the very nature of its commission, steeped in violence?
Commissioned Confession
Moroccan student Nadir arrives at Łódź Film School in 1968, amidst Eastern anti-imperialist support. He meets Jewish teacher Edyta, who is forced to leave Poland after the Six-Day War. In 2024 he finds her letter, reviving memories of a fractured love.
Miraculous Accident
A naked musician in search of inspiration. A museum depot where paintings and sculptures lie hidden away from our gaze. An appealing tune rising from an old armonica… What at first seems an absurd and enigmatic performance little by little becomes a voyage into a troubling European mythology that has the shape of ancient landscapes and mystic figures. With subtle irony, Assaf Gruber invites us to question our perception of art and entertainment.
Never Come Back
The Right is a fictional story shaped by historical memory. A 73-year-old security guard at Dresden’s Old Masters Picture Gallery writes to the director of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, asking to volunteer there as an attendant. Beyond her own history as a Polish-German refugee in the 1940s, her wish is drawn by the museum’s avant-garde collection. From the Caravaggisti room in Dresden, she imagines another future for herself.
The Right
Continuing his research into the European canon, its concepts, history and grey areas, (Daphne and Thomas, FID 2019), Assaf Gruber is our tour guide.
Rude Witness
Transient Witness unfolds through the eyes of three protagonists: Christina, the manager of an art collection; Maurizio, an art mover; and Präsens, the collector's dog.