Age rating: 12A
Content warnings: Features frank references to historical racism and violence. Also contents references to sexual violence and sexual threat.

The film

Jazz and decolonisation are entwined in this Oscar nominated historical rollercoaster. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. After the admission to the UN of sixteen newly independent African countries causes a political earthquake, the US State Department swings into action, sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup.

The screening will be a followed by a panel discussion with Director Johan Grimonprez, Imruh Bakari (filmmaker/writer), Emma Sandon (Birkbeck/June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive) and Hélène Neveu Kringelbach (UCL), chaired by David Wood (UCL).

The film has been selected by David Wood, UKRI Research Fellow at UCL’s School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS), who says:

"Soundtrack to a Coup d’État is a powerful and incisive piece of filmmaking that shows the potential of historical archival material for narrating history in new, creative and engaging ways. Grimonprez’s documentary says a lot of important things about the complex politics of African decolonisation, Cold War geopolitics and the United Nations, and about how jazz music and cultural diplomacy cut across this history in unexpected ways. It’s a profoundly moving film that makes us think deeply about the ways in which the histories of art, culture and media are intertwined with histories of violence and colonialism. All this is very close to the work that we’re doing in the UKRI-funded Screen Internationalism project at UCL School of European Languages, Culture, and Society, which explores the links between screen media and ideas about global culture and politics during the world-building process following World War Two."

UCL East Community Cinema

This screening is part of the UCL East Community Cinema, a series of free screenings on Wednesday evenings with films specially selected by our students, academics and community partners. Check out the other films we're screening.

This event is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee, grant reference EP/Y015088/1. It is organised in collaboration with the Institute of Advanced Studies (UCL), Cambridge Film and Screen Studies, and the French Section of the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at The University of Cambridge.

UCL East Community Cinema - Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (+ Director Q&A)