SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT

In 1960, United Nations: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe denouncing America’s color bar, while the U.S. dispatches jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the Congo to deflect attention from its first African post-colonial coup... Anchored by the rhythm of American jazz, SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT unravels extraordinary cold war truths and reveals the curious link between Black Americans’ fight for civil rights and the assassination of Congo’s first democratically elected Black African prime minister and suggests that the US used jazz legend Louis Armstrong in a ‘cool war’ offensive to assassinate Patrice Lumumba... Belgian extraordinaire Johan Grimonprez (DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y) creates another unique documentary/film essay unlike anything you've ever seen, masterfully combining archival footage, post-war jazz and staccato beats to draw fascinating connections between the weaponisation of music, US imperialism and the Pan-African decolonisation movement. The result is hypnotic, harrowing and surprisingly revealing... His film juxtaposes the racist lynchings and de facto apartheid of southern American states such as Mississippi in the 1960s with the contemporary assassination of Patrice Lumumba. His film reveals how Lumumba was toppled in a military coup aided by the CIA, MI6, 20,000 supposed peacekeepers deployed by UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, freebooting mercenaries like “Mad Mike” Hoare and, finally, Belgium, whose secret service worked with white colonists desperate to retain their African assets.SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT showing at: January 5, 3:00 pm

Location: ActOne Cinema119 - 121 High Street, London, W3 6NA3

2025-01-05T15:00:00+00:00PT2H30M2025-01-05T17:50:00+00:0060

Patrice Lumumba

Louis Armstrong

Dizzy Gillespie

Johan Grimonprez

Rémi Grellety

Daan Milius

SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT"

ActOne Cinema - Independent Crowdfunded Community Cinema