Jazz and decolonization collide in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba’s murder. In 1961, six months after sixteen newly independent African countries joined the UN, the majority vote shifted from colonial powers. Amid Khrushchev’s shoe-banging indignation over the UN’s role in Lumumba’s overthrow, the US sent jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to divert attention from the CIA-backed coup.
* Film recommended for ages 12 and over.
Screenplay Johan Grimonprez
Cinematography Blaise Jadoul
Editing Rik Chaubet
Sound Ranko Pauković, Alec “Bunic” Goose
Producers Daan Milius, Rémi Grellety
Production Onomatopee Films, Warboys Films
AUDIO: English, French, Dutch, Russian
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
26
April,
Sunday
Cinema Elvire Popesco
7:30 PM
150'
Followed by Q&A with director Johan Grimonprez
Johan Grimonprez - Filmmaker
Johan Grimonprez
Filmmaker
Johan Grimonprez is a filmmaker, multimedia artist, and curator whose critically acclaimed work moves between theory and practice, art and cinema, beyond the dualisms of documentary and fiction, self and other, mind and brain, to weave new pathways for perceiving our realities. His film “dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y” (1997, in collaboration with novelist Don DeLillo) premiered at documenta X and was named by the Guardian among the “30 greatest works in the history of video art.” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”, his latest feature, is Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary Feature, premiering at Sundance 2024, where it won the Cinematic Innovation Award, and later the Persistence of Vision Award at SFFilm and the Audience Award at Thessaloniki.
awards and festivals
Nominated for Best Documentary Feature – Academy Awards 2025 Nominated for European Documentary, European Film – European Film Awards 2024 Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation – World Cinema Documentary Competition – Sundance Film Festival 2024 San Sebastián International Film Festival 2024 Busan International Film Festival 2024 BFI London Film Festival 2024 Göteborg Film Festival 2025 Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI) 2024 IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival 2024 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2024