this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
4 points (100.0% liked)

History

0 readers
5 users here now

an mbin magazine for all things related to history

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

In 1960, 16 newly independent African countries, including Congo, became part of the United Nations. In 1961, Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of Congo, was assassinated. In the intervening six months, jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie traveled to Congo to perform, not realizing that they were acting as a smokescreen for the coup d'etat in which Lumumba would be killed, and in which the Belgian and U.S. governments may have been complicit.

"Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat," a documentary from Belgian artist and director Johan Grimonprez, tells that story, and it has been nominated for an Oscar. Robert Daniels wrote a review of the movie when it was released last year. "It’s difficult to watch Grimonprez’s intuitive telling of history without feeling the sinister truth of world history: the major powers of the world only see countries like the Congo as an exploitable resource, not as a sovereign state," he says.

https://flip.it/.HnKd1
#Movies #Documentaries #Africa #Congo #Oscars #History #Cinema #Film

top 1 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

@[email protected] And if you'd like to see what happened after the coup, also very cleverly constructed from extant footage and using juxtaposition to strengthen its points, I highly recommend Craig Baldwin's 1986 short film RocketKitCongoKit. It's the perfect follow-on, and shows just how badly the actions of the West fucked the Congo for decades to come.