17 min, DCP, 2.35:1
Italian and German
25 November 2019. A dog accompanies a man who is driving a car filled with artworks. Over the radio, a journalist reports that priceless gems were just stolen from the Grünes Gewölbe [Green Vault], part of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden [Dresden State Art Collections, or SKD], causing a national outrage in Germany.
The man is not particularly interested in the report. He turns off the radio and instead starts to sing the Jewish children's song Chad Gadya in Italian. The song is a cumulative counting story in which the character of each verse defeats the protagonist of the preceding one.
The truck arrives at its destination: the SKD. As the dog jumps out of the vehicle and vanishes into the Grünes Gewölbe, the man chases behind, initiating an uncanny journey that echoes the metabolic narration of Chad Gadya and reveals a series of uninhibited interactions with the baroque objects of the museum.
The phantasmagoric narrative is composed of fragments that concurrently merge and obscure the activities of collecting and stealing, thereby calling into question the concepts of inheritance, entitlement, and loss that shape dominant narratives in art history.
Actors: Michele Andrei and Sabine Wackernagel
Producers: Caroline Kirberg and Assaf Gruber
Cinematographer: Frank Meyer
Set & Costume Design: Sara Wendt
Editors: Janina Herheroffer, Dane Komljen and Assaf Gruber
1st Assistant Director: Moriya Matityahu
Written and directed by Assaf Gruber
The film was co-produced by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Germany), Krieg in Hasselt (Belgium), the Fundación Botín in Santander (Spain), CCA Tel Aviv, and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.