Sanaz Sohrabi reframes OPEC as solidarity story in An Incomplete Calendar
OPEC, the oil cartel, becomes an unlikely tale of music, solidarity and peace in a new documentary.
Iranian Canadian artist and film-maker Sanaz Sohrabi directed An Incomplete Calendar, her first feature. The 77-minute film, dated 2026, is built from archival footage and ephemera about OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The Art Newspaper reports it reframes the group as an agent of anti-imperialist solidarity and a vehicle for peace through cultural exchange.
It runs 77 minutes.
OPEC was created in Baghdad in 1960. Sohrabi reaches further back, including archival footage of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh's 1951 visit to Cairo. She spent six years researching and filming the project in Tehran, Cairo, Beirut and Caracas, tracing paper trails and images across four cities.
The narration is shared. Poetic voiceovers come from Sohrabi herself alongside Murtaza Vali, Laleh Khalili, Layla Maghribi and Leonardo Montaño Salas. On her site, Sohrabi describes the work as a story about oil, music and the Third World project, the loose mid-century alliance of newly independent states seeking a common voice. Sanaz Sohrabi
The form is the essay film, a type of documentary that mixes archive, image and personal commentary rather than straight reportage. An Incomplete Calendar closes a trilogy of such films by Sohrabi. It lists Canada, Venezuela, Iran and Turkey as production countries and was finished for cinemas as a DCP, the standard digital file used for projection, with 5.1 surround sound.
Festivals have picked it up quickly. It had its Canadian premiere, its first screening in the country, at the Vancouver International Film Festival in Vancouver in 2026. Vancouver International Film Festival It also played in Europe and won the prize for best debut feature at Cinéma du Réel, the documentary festival in Paris.
What makes this stand out for a general viewer is the mix. Oil politics sits beside concert material, old documents and travel across continents. You do not need to know cartel history to follow it. The archive does the explaining, and the voices guide you through.
