SYNOPSIS
A forgotten vinyl record shaped by oil, music, and the Third World project reveals an untold history. In 1980, Rhymes and Songs for OPEC was recorded for OPEC’s 20th anniversary. Through rare archives and forgotten songs, the film presents oil not as a commodity but as a political force supporting liberation struggles in Palestine and Pan-Arab solidarity. It revisits a transnational vision fractured by neoliberal economics and explores the relationship between images, archives, and resource extraction.
REVIEW
The film begins with a record: Rhymes and Songs for OPEC, recorded in 1980 by the choir of the Central University of Venezuela to mark OPEC’s twentieth anniversary. Featuring folk songs from member states sung collectively, the album stands as a living trace of an aspiration toward political solidarity. Through it, the film revisits Pan-Arab alliances and the politics of Palestinian liberation, recalling a solidarity among oil-producing nations that is difficult to imagine within today’s geopolitical order—a time when oil could function as both leverage and promise in struggles for liberation.
Yet the film does not simply attempt to restore OPEC’s past “emancipatory imagination.” Using the album as a point of departure, it rearranges micro-archives—stamps, letters, magazines, photographs, films, and newsreels—to assemble internationalist visions and failed promises excluded from official history. Rather than presenting history as complete, it fills in dates that have been erased or passed over. In this sense, the title An Incomplete Calendar names an unfinished time lost to contemporary oil politics. Today, oil functions less as a medium of solidarity than as a source of vulnerability destabilizing global supply chains. The film carries a sense of mourning for the transformation of oil from a language of solidarity into the administrative language of market stability, and that makes it strikingly contemporary.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
In 2019, I encountered "Rhymes and Songs for OPEC," where a Venezuelan choir phonetically sang folk songs in Farsi, Arabic, and Yoruba. Though musically precise, these songs remained partially unintelligible to native speakers. This unusual sonic map of oil became the foundation for exploring language and music as spaces of international solidarity. Reaching the Aula Magna required nearly a year of dialogue with the choir, leading to profound connections with former members. Their voices, archival fragments, and enduring echoes weave a story of transnational friendship against imperial interventions.
CONTACT
María VERA | distribution@kinorebelde.com
