Johan Grimonprez: Soundtrack to a Coup d’État

After acclaimed essay films such as Dial H‑I-S-T-O-R‑Y (1997) and Double Take (2009), the Belgian multimedia artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez now unravels how jazz and geopolitics collide in a nefarious chapter of Cold War history: the murder of Patrice Lumumba.

Deeply researched, the film interweaves archival records, home movies, newly unearthed speeches by Lumumba, and published memoirs by Congolese activists and writers with the story of the Black jazz legends who defined the era in more ways than one.

“Both a historical pamphlet and a swinging musical composition, Soundtrack to a Coup d’État unfolds like a record’s extensive sleeve notes, as the jazz sounds propel and carry along facts, figures and footnotes of major and minor histories with them at dizzying speed.” (Antoine Thirion)

• Screening in the context of Brussels Art Film Festival (BAFF) Extra Muros, in collaboration with Kunsthal Gent

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