Zahra Moloo interviews Johan Gimonprez
Africa is a Country
The director of the Oscar-nominated film 'Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat' reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.
In 1960, Patrice Lumumba became the prime minister of newly independent Congo. His close ally Andrée Blouin describes how Belgium and the US conspired to oust Lumumba and impose Mobutu’s kleptocratic dictatorship on the Congolese people.
A snub from the White House, a controversial stay at Blair House, an encounter with Dave Chappelle’s mother and a CIA-arranged tryst — what happened when Congo’s beleaguered leader visited D.C. in 1960.
Belgium has repatriated Patrice Lumumba's gold tooth – his only remains. But there will only be justice when the Congolese win back what was truly killed in 1961: his politics of self-determination.
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