US Trailer for Coup’s Soundtrack Offers Rhythmic and Radical Perspective on Global Politics

One of the best documentaries premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Soundtrack of a Coup a radical, rhythmically orchestrated look at global politics. Directed by Johan Grimonprez, the film has been picked up by Kino Lorber for a theatrical release on November 1 at NYC’s Film Forum, and now the first trailer has been released.

The synopsis reads: “United Nations, 1960: The Global South ignites a political earthquake, jazz musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach bring down the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev slams his shoe, and the U.S. State Department springs into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to distract from a CIA-backed coup. Directed by Johan Grimonprez (dial HISTORY, Shadow World) explores a moment when jazz, colonialism, and espionage collided, constructing a gripping historical roller coaster that illuminates the political intrigue behind the assassination of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba in 1961. The result is a revealing documentary richly illustrated with eyewitness accounts, official government memoranda, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA agents, speeches by Lumumba himself, and a veritable corpus of jazz icons. Soundtrack of a Coup “By interrogating colonial history, it tells an urgent and timely story that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.”

John Fink said: his reviewIt was Mark Twain who said, “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”; this is what Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez has come up with in his sweeping, jazz-infused Soundtrack of a CoupThe political essay revisits 1960, a tumultuous year in global relations: Patrice Lumumba comes to power in the Congo just as the U.S. aims to soften America’s image on the ship via the CIA-backed Voice of America radio network, and sends jazz musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach on a world tour. The film positions the jazz musicians as a kind of political cabinet, with Gillespie pitching his own run for the White House on television at home. The tone is kinetic, defiant, with breaking news, sound bites and excerpts punctuating the historical footage that might otherwise be the primary focus of a more standard documentary.

Watch the trailer below.