Soundtrack to a Coup d'État

After almost a century of brutal colonial exploitation by Belgium, Congo state became an independent country in 1960: the Democratic Republic of Congo. The first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, wanted the country's many natural resources to benefit the Congolese themselves, and this did not go down well with the West. After a coup, Lumumba, who had sought support from the Soviet Union, was arrested and eventually assassinated. It is hard to prove, but it is likely that Belgium and especially the US orchestrated all this.

In this documentary, Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez uses archive footage to show what impact all this had. At the height of the Cold War, Lumumba inspired the civil rights movement in the US, but at the same time it became clear that, even if the colonies had gained independence, these countries were far from being freed from Western imperialism. Grimonprez also discusses how the CIA used black jazz musicians for its purposes.