Sanaz Sohrabi's 'An Incomplete Calendar' Reimagines OPEC as Anti-Imperialist Solidarity

Key facts

• Sanaz Sohrabi's film 'An Incomplete Calendar' won the best debut feature prize at the Cinéma du Réel festival in Paris in March.
• The film screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival earlier this month and has upcoming screenings at the Valdivia International Film Festival in Chile (until 18 October), the Cali International Film Festival in Colombia (until 25 October), and the Boston Palestine Film Festival in the US (until 25 October).
• Sohrabi spent six years gathering archives for the film, which is part of her trilogy on the colonial history of extraction in Iran and West Asia.
• The film uses poetic voiceovers from Sohrabi, Murtaza Vali, Laleh Khalili, Layla Maghribi, and Leonardo Montaño Salas, among others.
• The narrative covers the 1950s decolonization, Pan-Arabism, the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, and ends in 1980 with the start of the Iran-Iraq war.
• Archival footage includes Mohammed Mossadegh's 1951 Cairo visit and Gamal Abdel Nasser after nationalizing the Suez Canal Company.
• The film features a 1980 vinyl 'Rhymes and Songs for OPEC' by the Central University of Venezuela's concert choir, with interviews of former members.
• Scenes include Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art (designed by Kamran Diba, opened 1977) and the Aula Magna auditorium at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, a UNESCO World Heritage site with Alexander Calder's 'Floating Clouds' (1953).