WINNER — World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award, Cinematic Innovation, Sundance Film Festival

NOMINEE — Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film

Headquarters of the United Nations, 1960: the Global South sets off a political earthquake; jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council; Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe. The US State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the newly independent Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the 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 Oscar-nominated film, a riveting historical rollercoaster that illuminates the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of Congo’s prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’État interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.

In English, French, Dutch and Russian with English subtitles.

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