Soundtrack to a Coup d État

Johan Grimonprez – Belgium, France 2024 – 150 minutes – languages spoken: English, Russian, French, Dutch; with English subtitles

It is February 1961. Two jazz musicians, Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach, storm into the UN Security Council in protest of the murder of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister. It has been six months since the admission of sixteen newly independent African countries to the UN, a political earthquake that shifts the majority of the votes away from the Western colonial powers. While Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wields his shoe to pound out his indignation about the complicity of the UN in the overthrow of Lumumba, the US seeks its refuge in jazz. Afraid to lose Congolese uranium, they send music legends such as Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington to Africa to divert attention from the CIA-supported coup d’état. Meanwhile, Armstrong and others struggle with a painful dilemma: how can they represent a country where racial segregation is alive and kicking?

The energy of Soundtrack to a Coup d’État is effervescent; it is at once a painful piece of colonial history and a lively jazz concert. With biting precision and rich detail, director Johan Grimonprez unravels the decolonisation of Congo, exposing the 1961 murder of Lumumba and the involvement of the Belgian and American governments. By interweaving jazz music with political intrigue, he sketches a powerful picture of colonialism, racism and the ongoing battle over Congolese natural resources. Film editing that is just as jazzy as the soundtrack, the Special Jury Award at Sundance, and a long series of triumphs at film festivals make Soundtrack to a Coup d’État the must-see documentary of the year. “Johan Grimonprez laces his equally musical and historic archive film about the Congo crisis with a fabulously chosen mix of major and minor characters from the past.” (Volkskrant*****)