Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat [In-Person Only] at Northwest Film Forum

Wed Dec 4: 6.30pm PDT
Thur Dec 5: 6.30pm PDT

$14 General Admission
$10 Student/Child/Senior
$7 Member

About
(Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands, 2024, 2hour 20min, in English, French, Dutch, and Russian with English subtitles)

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 Congos leader Patrice Lumumba. Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons, Soundtrack to a Coup dEtat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in todays geopolitical climate....

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Wed Dec 4: 6.30pm PDT
Thur Dec 5: 6.30pm PDT

$14 General Admission
$10 Student/Child/Senior
$7 Member

About
(Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands, 2024, 2hour 20min, in English, French, Dutch, and Russian with English subtitles)

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 Congos leader Patrice Lumumba. Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons, Soundtrack to a Coup dEtat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in todays geopolitical climate.

A remarkable film exhaustive, informative and rigorously researched, but also crackling with energy, ideas and formal daring. - Wendy Ide, Screen Daily

Synopsis courtesy of Kino Lorber

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