Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat

oin us for a post-screening discussion with director Johan Grimonprez and producer Remi Grellety, in person.

In 1960, at the 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 US dispatches jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the Congo. Johan Grimonprez’s new essay film invokes African American jazz music to animate a rich fabric of griot texts, eyewitness accounts, official government memos, and testimonies from CIA operatives. It shines light on how the Belgian monarchy, the US government, and multinational corporations used art institutions and legendary jazz musicians as cover for covert operations against Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. (Johan Grimonprez, 2024, DCP, French, English, Flemish, Russian with English subtitles, 150 minutes)

Free. Registration required.

Programmed in partnership with DC/DOX Film Festival

Part of the ongoing series Art Films and Special Screenings

The end time for this event is estimated. End times may vary with post-screening discussion, audience Q&A, or other factors. All film events finish by 5:00 p.m.