In 1960, United Nations: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe denouncing America’s color bar, while the U.S. dispatches jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the Congo to deflect attention from its first African post-colonial coup.

Director Johan Grimonprez (Double Take, 2009) returns to Sundance with this magnificent essay film that vibrantly embodies the historic and continually evolving colonial machinations that underpin what author and Congolese writer In Koli Jean Bofane refers to as an ever-evolving “algorithm of Congo Inc.”

In addition to Bofane’s observations, Grimonprez invokes a veritable canon of African American jazz music to animate a rich fabric of griot texts, eyewitness accounts, official government memos, and testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives to shine light on one of the most insidious political machinations of the 20th century: how the Belgian monarchy, the United States government, and multinational corporations colluded to weaponize art institutions and legendary jazz musicians as cover for covert operations to assassinate Congo’s premiere prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat is a timely story of precedent that speaks to today’s geopolitical terrain, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and around the world.—SF

This film contains images of violence.

Available in person. Also available online for the public (January 25–28) and credentialed press and industry (January 24–28).