Doc Talk Podcast: Oscar-Contending Director Johan Grimonprez Explains How He Pulled Off Incredible Filmmaking Feat In ‘Soundtrack To A Coup D’Etat’

In February 1961, a remarkable outburst took place at the United Nations in New York – jazz artists Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, writer Maya Angelou and others crashed the Security Council to protest the assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

That little-remembered demonstration serves as the backdrop to the award-winning documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, directed by Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez. The film explores how the U.S. and Belgium conspired to force Lumumba from power, with the complicity of the UN secretary general. Even as the plot moved towards a bloody denouement, the U.S. State Department was dispatching some of America’s great Black jazz artists to Africa in the role of goodwill ambassadors, attempting to paper over its machinations in Congo.

Grimonprez joins the latest episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast to explain how he managed to deftly synthesize so much complex world history, setting it to the beat of Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Lincoln and Roach. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat has emerged as a leading Oscar contender after winning awards at film festivals around the world, from Sundance to Thessaloniki in Greece, The Hague, and El Gouna in Egypt. It’s a work of genius, in the words of Doc Talk co-host Matt Carey.

Grimonprez, who is being honored as the guest of honor at this year’s International Documentary Festival Amsterdam beginning this week, speculates on the stature the charismatic Lumumba might have achieved had he not been rubbed out at age 35. As it is, Lumumba is remembered as an astonishing figure who helped unyoke Africa from its colonial shackles as the first democratically elected leader of Congo. But his grim fate was sealed, it might be said, by Congo’s enormous natural resources.

In the 19th century it was Congo’s natural rubber that outside powers coveted, and in the mid-20th century it was uranium. Today, world powers and corporate interests are seeking to extract something else from Congo; Grimonprez tells us what it is.

That’s on the latest edition of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The pod, a 2024 Webby Awards honoree, is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.

Our new episode is brought to you in partnership with Obscured Pictures. Listen to it above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.