Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
The mission of the Centre d'art et essai de la Cinémathèque québécoise (CAECQ) is to primary program Quebec-made documentaries and independent fiction, as well as international documentaries, animated and foreign films, while encouraging opportunities for meetings between the public and the artists. Its programming is presented in conjunction with the Cinémathèque québécoise’s under the label New releases.
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
Featuring Louis Armstrong, Andrée Blouin, John Coltrane,
Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, Patrice Lumumba, Nina Simone & Malcolm X
United Nations, 1960: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe, and the U.S. State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup.
Director Johan Grimonprez captures the moment when African politics and American jazz collided in this magnificent essay film, a riveting historical rollercoaster that illuminates the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba. Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.
Johan Grimonprez
Johan Grimonprez’s critically acclaimed work dances on the borders of theory and practice, between art and cinema, beyond the dualisms of documentary and fiction, other and self, mind and brain, to weave new pathways and stories, emphasizing a multiplicity of realities. Informed by an archeology of present-day media, his work depicts intimate stories that brush up against the bigger picture of globalization. It questions our collective imagination and the contemporary sublime, one framed by a fear industry that has infected political and social dialogue. Grimonprez’s curatorial projects have been exhibited at museums worldwide, including the MoMA, and his works are part of numerous cultural institutions' collections. He has also published several books and lectured extensively at various universites and institutes aroudn the world. With his feature films, he has toured festival circuit from the Berlinale and Tribeca to Sundance. His latest feature, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Cinematic Innovation Award, among others.
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