Waissman is a lyrical and revealing portrait of Argentine artist Andrés Waissman, whose vast canvases, cryptic symbols, and densely layered crowds explore the personal and political memory of displacement, diaspora, and collective identity. From his early years growing up in Buenos Aires, through exile and creative reawakening in California, to his return and renewed artistic purpose, the film follows Waissman through decades of creative evolution rooted in both tradition and rupture.

 

Known for his “Multitudes” series—anonymous figures in migration, ships adrift, and imagined creatures from the past and future—Waissman’s work is haunted by the traumas of exile and the nomadic spirit of Jewish and immigrant communities. His paintings blend myth, metaphysics, and sociopolitical commentary, often invoking the mysticism of Kabbalah through indecipherable scripts and secret alphabets.

 

Shot in his studio, Waissman documents the spontaneity and solitude of the painter’s process, revealing how each canvas emerges from silence, intuition, and layered memory. Whether working with steel wool, cadmium red, or imagined languages, Waissman confronts the boundaries of history and form with the urgency of an artist still asking essential questions—about who we are, where we come from, and what it means to belong. HD|30 minutes