Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Showings

Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Fri, Feb 7 6:30 PM
Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Sat, Feb 8 6:30 PM
Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Mon, Feb 10 6:30 PM
Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Tue, Feb 11 3:30 PM
Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Wed, Feb 12 3:30 PM
Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Thu, Feb 13 3:30 PM
Film Info
Event Type:Documentary Feature
Release Year:2024
Run Time:150 minutes
Production Country:Belgium, France, Netherlands
Original Language:Dutch, English, French
Subtitles:English
Trailer:https://youtu.be/_RwLdIiZk_8?si=Sx0qZFVTjSBhROOz
Cast/Crew Info
Director:Johan Grimonprez

Description

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.


United Nations, 1960: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe, and the U.S. State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup.


Director Johan Grimonprez captures the moment when African politics and American jazz collided in this magnificent essay film, a riveting historical rollercoaster that illuminates the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba.


Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.


“A bravura cinematic essay that intertwines jazz, history, and the taste of a spy thriller … a mind-blowingly rich tapestry of research, music, and the jazziest history lesson