Soundtrack to a Coup d'État
Acclaimed documentary by video artist Johan Grimonprez on how the Belgian and American governments tried to maintain power in Congo in 1961, and on the CIA’s use of jazz music as a propaganda tool.
Patrice Lumumba became the first prime minister of newly independent Congo in 1960, only to be executed the following year. He had become the personification of the growing Pan-African movement, which threatened Western hegemony on the African continent. Against this background, jazz music became a political tool.
Patrice Lumumba had alarmed Belgium and the United States with his claims that Congo’s riches belonged to the country’s people. At the same time, it served as an inspiration for the American civil rights movement. SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT traces the budding hope that was emanating in the Global South and being felt in the West in 1960.
The film also delves into the way the CIA used Black American jazz artists, such as Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie, to promote America’s image abroad. As part of an African tour sponsored by the State Department and PepsiCo, Armstrong arrived in Congo in October 1960, a month after Lumumba’s overthrow. Were the musicians used as diversion tactic? Were the musicians used as a distraction from Western interference in post-colonial African politics?
Johan Grimonprez is a renowned video artist who knows how to weave exceptional footage with in-depth social analysis in a highly creative way. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize in the competition for foreign documentaries. (source: Movies That Matter Festival)