Doc Talk Podcast: Oscar-Contending Director Johan Grimonprez Explains How He Pulled Off Incredible Filmmaking Feat In ‘Soundtrack To A Coup D’Etat’
deadline.comIn February 1961, a remarkable outburst took place at the United Nations in New York – jazz artists Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, writer Maya Angelou and others crashed the Security Council to protest the assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
That little-remembered demonstration serves as the backdrop to the award-winning documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, directed by Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez.
The film explores how the U.S. and Belgium conspired to force Lumumba from power, with the complicity of the UN secretary general.
Even as the plot moved towards a bloody denouement, the U.S. State Department was dispatching some of America’s great Black jazz artists to Africa in the role of goodwill ambassadors, attempting to paper over its machinations in Congo.
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