SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT
Schedule
Sun, 22 Dec, 2024 at 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
Epsilon Spires | Brattleboro, VT
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Jazz and geopolitics collide in this riveting historical rollercoaster interrogating the 1961 assassination of Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba. Richly illustrated with eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, and a pantheon of jazz legends.SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT (2024, Dir. Johan Grimonprez, 150 mins)
Jazz and geopolitics collide in this magnificent, cinematic interrogation of colonial history and the 1961 assassination of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. Months before Lumumba was killed, jazz great Louis Armstrong was sent on an expansive tour of Africa, organized by the State Department that, unbeknownst to the trumpeter, was using his visit as a cover to get access and information about controversial Cold War operations. Stylistically mesmerizing, Johan Grimonprez’s kinetic, urgent documentary delivers the politics of decolonization in jazz form, foregrounds the powerful women behind the revolution, and sounds a call to clear-eyed interrogation of Western powers’ murderous collusions in the guise of liberal values. This magnificent essay film offers a chilling, brilliantly researched indictment of state-sanctioned violence and a history lesson that resonates now more than ever.
2024 Sundance Film Festival Winner: Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation, World Cinema Documentary
"Critic’s Pick! Rhythmic and propulsive... uses every instrument cinema affords. The result, in a word, is marvelous." – The New York Times
“A case study of decolonization, neo-imperialism, cultural exploitation, and political murder…I don’t think I’ve seen a better movie-movie all year.” – J. Hoberman, Film Comment
“One of the year’s very best documentaries…a riveting, deeply researched archival mixtape with the breadth of a period epic, the soul of an activist march and the pulse-racing energy of a cloak-and-dagger thriller.” – LA Times
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Where is it happening?
Epsilon Spires, 190 Main Street,Brattleboro,VT,United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
