Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat

Music critic Richard Williams' review of this film heaps praise on - "... this extraordinarily compelling film" and provides insightful context.  

He writes: "What makes this film different is the use of music. [Film Director] Grimonprez has spotted the US government’s soft-power use of jazz during the Cold War through State Department-sponsored international tours."

"We see [Louis] Armstrong in Africa in the film, but more novel and powerful is the juxtaposition of the avant-garde jazz of the time with footage of the political events: not so much a soundtrack as an active commentary. So we hear Abbey Lincoln's anguished screaming, Max Roach firing off snare-drum fusillades, the contorted sounds of Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet (with Charles Mingus's group, shortly before his death), Nina Simone simmering through Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown", and Coltrane, on fire in "My Favourite Things" and intoning the sorrow of "Alabama". Fast cutting is usually the enemy of understanding, but Rik Chaubet's shrewdly paced editing creates a non-stop tapestry of emotions, making the rhythms and the cry of the music mirror the events being depicted."

And...

"Direct action also played a part, and if you see this extraordinarily compelling film, you won't forget the spectacle of Lincoln, Roach and dozens of others courageously disrupting a session of the UN Security Council in New York to protest against the assassination of the figure Malcolm X called "the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent."  

(Read the full review on Williams' blog The Blu e Moment https://thebluemoment.com/)

In 1960, sixteen newly independent African countries enter the United Nations. Congo becomes the arena in which the battle over the UN is fought. As Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe at the UN-top in reaction to the neo-colonial grab of the resources of newly independent Congo, UN delegates from African Countries are blackmailed. 

In an incredulous twist Patrice Lumumba’s assassination unites the Afro-Asian block, demanding the UN General Assembly to vote for immediate worldwide decolonisation. In this highly explosive context, the United States government dispatches Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Nina Simone as Jazz Ambassadors around the world – as a diversion from CIA-backed coups.

“Superb study of how jazz got caught between the cold war and the CIA” ★★★★★ Observer

“Johan Grimonprez’s fascinating documentary suggests that the US used jazz legend Louis Armstrong in a ‘cool war’ offensive to assassinate Patrice Lumumba” ★★★★ Guardian

Review: "The core of Grimonprez’s narrative is as grimy and gripping as any spy novel..." Sight and Sound (bfi.org.uk)

Directed by Johan Grimonprez
2hr 30 mins // BEL / FRA / NLD