Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat has been nominated for the Best Documentary Feature category at Academy Awards 2025. Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this French historical spy rollercoaster with Nina Simone, Eva Gabor, Louis Armstrong, Malcolm X, Abbey Lincoln, Zap Mama and many others.

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…