Soundtrack to a Coup d’État

Sponsored in Part By: Loft Cinema

About The Movie

“Mind-blowing! A bravura cinematic essay that intertwines jazz, history and the taste of a spy thriller.” – Tomris Laffly, Harper’s Bazaar

From the Congo to Harlem and back again, Johan Grimonprez’s kinetic, urgent documentary delivers the politics of decolonization in jazz form, replete with virtuosic archival riffs, historical text in the form of Blue Note album covers, and musical performances by jazz legends (Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone) who in the ‘60s doubled as cultural ambassadors to Africa. Their roles as unknowing decoys in the CIA’s plot to assassinate Congo’s prime minister Patrice Lumumba threads through this deeply researched, densely textured tapestry — which scrambles the simplistic good guys/bad guys narrative, foregrounds powerful women behind the revolution (Simone, Abbey Lincoln, and activist/chief advisor to Lumumba, Andrée Blouin), and interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than even in today’s geopolitical climate. (Dir. by Johan Grimonprez, 2024, Belgium/France/Netherlands, in English/French/Dutch/Russian with English subtitles, 150 mins., Not Rated)