The documentary “My Blood Is Oil” exposes the reality of Pemex workers

Mexican filmmaker Vania Quevedo won the La Musa award for Best Documentary Feature at the Morelia International Film Festival with her debut film My blood is oil.

The documentary at the Morelia International Film Festival

Quevedo’s feature film competed at the Morelia International Film Festival, where it secured the La Musa award for Best Documentary Feature. The film draws directly from the director’s upbringing in Macuspana, Tabasco, examining the personal toll of Mexico’s petroleum sector.

Growing up inside the Macuspana oil infrastructure

The director first entered a film set at age 15 while her father participated in an institutional advertisement for Petróleos Mexicanos that depicted oil workers as family men. Quevedo was born in Macuspana, Tabasco, the home municipality of former Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), who backed the construction of the Olmeca refinery in Dos Bocas.

Labor precarity and the platform worker reality

Through interviews with her father and other Pemex personnel, the documentary contrasts corporate promises of indefinite contracts and stable retirements with the harsh conditions faced by temporary platform workers. These workers encounter unjust dismissals alongside severe physical and psychological strain.

My dad slept three hours a day, especially when the oil well was having problems. He spent a large part of his life working, locked up for long periods on the platform, with the promise of one day having a peaceful old age.

Vania Quevedo

Breaking three generations of family oil tradition

Pemex operations in the region date back to the 1951 discovery of the José Colomo oil field in Macuspana and the subsequent 1958 opening of the Ciudad Pemex industrial complex. This industrial footprint shaped three generations of Quevedo’s family, including her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

Choosing a career in the arts rather than petroleum production allowed Quevedo and her siblings to diverge from that generational path. The project began development in 2016 through a collaboration between Quevedo’s production company, Rupestris Films, and Disruptiva Films executive producer Omar Lara.