OnThe Hill Film Screening: SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT by Johan Grimonprez

Join us On the Hill for a screening of “SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT” by Johan Grimonprez (2024) Since 1932, Highlander has centered the experiences of directly-impacted people in our region, knowing that together, we have the solutions to address the challenges we face in our communities and to build more just, equitable, and sustainable systems and structures. This fall we invite you to the Hill for a series of screenings intended to change our relationship to the land, our neighbors, and each other. Our workshops and programming bring people together across issues, identity, and geography to share and build skills, knowledge, and strategies for transformative social change. Our "OnThe Hill" film screening and discussion series uses media to convene communities and facilitate consciousness-raising around political, social, and cultural issues. Join us On The Hill for a screening of “SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT” by Johan Grimonprez (2024) From the Congo to Harlem and back again, Johan Grimonprez’s kinetic, urgent documentary delivers the politics of decolonization in jazz form, replete with virtuosic archival riffs, historical text in the form of Blue Note album covers, and musical performances by jazz legends (Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone) who in the ‘60s doubled as cultural ambassadors to Africa. Their roles as unknowing decoys in the CIA’s plot to assassinate Congo’s prime minister Patrice Lumumba threads through this deeply researched, densely textured tapestry — which scrambles the simplistic good guys/bad guys narrative, foregrounds powerful women behind the revolution (Simone, Abbey Lincoln, and activist/chief advisor to Lumumba, Andrée Blouin), and sounds a call to clear-eyed interrogation of Western powers’ murderous collusions in the guise of liberal values.