Join us for this unique and enlightening Oscar-nominated documentary, which highlights the tumultuous history of Congo-Belgian-US relations during the Cold War era. The film will be preceded by a brief introduction from UT associate professor of history and Congo specialist Nicole Eggers, contextualizing the film within Congo’s current political crisis. It will be followed by a Q&A with Eggers joined by UT assistant professors of Francophone Studies Moussa Seck and Brittany Murray, specialists in African/Migrant Literature and Film.

This free screening event is sponsored and presented by the University of Tennessee’s Denbo Center for the Humanities and the Arts in collaboration with UT’s History, World Languages and Cultures, Cinema Studies and Africana Studies programs. You can RSVP below to reserve your seat.

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 Congo’s 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 d’Etat interrogates colonial history to tell an urgent and timely story of precedent that resonates more than ever in today’s geopolitical climate.

“A bravura cinematic essay that intertwines jazz, history, and the taste of a spy thriller…what Grimonprez creates here is a mind-blowingly rich tapestry of research, music, and the jazziest history lesson imaginable.” – Harper’s Bazaar

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