Oscar Docs: ’Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat'
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Listener supported WNYC Studios. |
| 0:07.2 | Brian Lairer on WNYC, |
| 0:20.5 | every year in Oscar season, as most of the media focus on the competition for best picture and best actors, we invite the makers of the five films nominated for best feature-length documentary. |
| 0:33.3 | And we'll do one of those interviews right now. |
| 0:35.2 | The nominated film is called Soundtrack to a coup d'etat. |
| 0:39.5 | Soundtrack to a coup d'etat. |
| 0:41.7 | With sound and visuals, it tells the story of the assassination in 1960 of Patrice Lumumba, |
| 0:49.2 | the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, after it won independence from Belgian colonial rule. |
| 0:56.1 | But it centers not just the political figures of the time, like U.S. President Eisenhower, |
| 1:01.8 | Lumumba himself, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, but also iconic American jazz musicians |
| 1:07.8 | who were recruited to play a role in American diplomacy in Africa at the time. |
| 1:13.5 | Icons like Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. |
| 1:20.3 | One of America's most popular emissaries arrives in the Trinvoltau, |
| 1:24.9 | on a State Department's Goodwill mission. |
| 1:27.0 | Louis Solid Swinging Outreid Radio Moscow, which blasted Armstrong's visit as a diversionary |
| 1:32.0 | tactic. |
| 1:33.3 | That archival news clip begins to set the scene in the trailer for the film, but what did |
| 1:38.7 | jazz have to do with it? |
| 1:39.9 | With us now as the director of soundtrack to Accuad'Ate d'Hohan Grimpray. |
| 1:44.8 | His bio page on the movie site, IMDB, says Grimopre's work seeks out the tension between the intimate and the bigger picture of globalization. |
| 1:53.7 | Earlier films you may know from the 1990s include Dial History and Documenta X, which IMDB says eerily foreshadowed the events of September 11th. |
| 2:05.5 | He also made Shadow World in 2016. He splits his time between Belgium and New York. |
... |
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