SILVER

Followed by a panel discussion with Maurice Carney, Executive Director and co-founder, Friends of the Congo, and Professor Tom Porter, former member of CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee); former head of the King Center in Atlanta; former Director of Black Studies, Ohio University; and former Program Director, WPFW. Moderated by Katea Stitt, Program Director, WPFW.

Nominee, Best Documentary Feature, 2025 Academy Awards®

Jazz and colonial politics collide in a forgotten chapter of Cold War history in Johan Grimonprez’s electrifying essay film. The music of Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone and other jazz legends infuse the soundscape of decolonization movements rippling through the African continent in the 1960s and in turn, the insidious plotting of Western powers. Featuring excerpts from “My Country, Africa” by Andrée Blouin, “Congo Inc.” by In Koli Jean Bofane, “To Katanga and Back” by Conor Cruise O’Brien and audio memoirs by Nikita Khrushchev, SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT interweaves montage, typography and music to meticulously retrace a detailed historical account of what led to musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach’s 1961 protest of the United Nations Security Council over the murder of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Grimonprez’s striking indictment of postcolonial ramifications is as pertinent as ever. (Note courtesy AFI FEST.) DIR/SCR Johan Grimonprez; PROD Rémi Grellety, Daan Milius. Belgium/France/Netherlands, 2024, color, 150 min. In English, French, Dutch and Russian with English subtitles. NOT RATED