Soundtrack to a Coup d’État is a dynamic essay film that explores the collision of African politics and American jazz.  

Set in 1960, it opens with a political upheaval at the UN, jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crashing the Security Council to protest Lumumba’s murder. The U.S. sends Louis Armstrong, in a “cool war” offensive, to the Congo as a distraction from the CIA-backed coup and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, succinctly sets out the international context of the Cold War, the American civil rights movement and the Non-Aligned Movement in the UN, before zooming in on the assassination of Congo’s first democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961 and the direct involvement of the Belgian and US governments, which feared losing their grip on Congolese uranium.  

Multimedia artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, after acclaimed essays such as dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) and Double Take (2009), presents a cine-collage of archive footage, interviews, text (with footnotes) and music, proposing a new jazz soundtrack to the paranoid style of American politics, trying to export jazz music by black American musicians to Africa, to win hearts and minds. Through archival accounts, government memos, and jazz icons, this remarkable film offers a timely reflection on colonial history and the powerful link between music and political movements, delivering a powerful critique of colonial power, that continues to resonate today.  

Charles Coleman, FACETS Film Program Director has selected Soundtrack to Coup d’État as one of his 2024 Top Ten Films.