20th Arab Film Festival

Saturday, September 26 at 2:40 PM

Video introduction by director Sanaz Sohrabi

ABOUT THE FILM

Rhymes and Songs for OPEC, a vinyl record from 1980, is the starting point of this film. The album contains a special recording by the Central University of Venezuela’s concert choir to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Layers of songs and rarely seen archives comprise the film, which reframes the global story of oil not as commodity, but as political leverage for the liberation struggles of Palestine and for building Pan-Arab solidarity between 1960 and 1970.

FILMMAKER BIO

Sanaz Sohrabi (1988, Tehran) is a researcher of visual culture and artist-filmmaker based in Montréal, working on visual histories of resource sovereignty and post-colonial ecologies from the Global South. Her films and installations have been shown and awarded in various festivals and biennials including Berlinale, IFFR, Ljubljana Biennial (2023), and Museum of Contemporary Art Montréal. Her first documentary feature An Incomplete Calendar (2026) premiered at Cinéma du Réel. 

PRESENTED BY MIZNA

Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than 25 years, Mizna has been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.