Sound Track to a Coup d' Etat

Monday, October 13, 2025 - 1:30pm
CST
Film Screening
Followed by discussion with Brad Rockwell
La Biblioteca, Sala Quezal, Insurgentes 25, Centro, San Miguel de Allende

2025 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary

Remarkable largely unknown footage of a dramatic turning point in world history covering events over three continents concerning a tragic coup in the Congo. Featuring: Maya Angelou, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Patrice Lumumba, Dwight Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, Dag Hammarskjöld, Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, Allen Dulles, Kwame Nkrumah, and many others.

Using a rich tapestry of obscure archival footage, the documentary highlights how U.S. jazz musicians unwittingly became part of an effort to undermine African independence. Other dramatic performances by Khrushchev and Hammarskjöld, and demonstrations organized by Maya Angelou inside the United Nations General Assembly are masterfully intertwined with the efforts of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and pan-African women’s rights organizer Andrée Blouin, to form a free democratic country and the machinations of agents of the CIA, British intelligence, the former head of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Belgian royalty, and mercenary soldiers to crush this effort. All this is told with great coherence and allegiance to historical fact, along with moving evocation of the broad human scale of the events.  There has never before been a documentary quite like this.

Tickets: $130 pesos
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Upcoming Events

Monday, September 8, 2025 - 1:30pm
CST
Vijay Prashad
Location:
La Biblioteca, Sala Quezal

Note: This program is rescheduled from August 11.

We surely live in interesting times--from the deepening of U.S.-led militarism to existential ecological and economic crises to shifts in the world order ranging from a significant decline of the Global North along with the rise of the East and Global... Read more

Monday, October 13, 2025 - 1:30pm
CST
Film Screening
Followed by discussion with Brad Rockwell
Location:
La Biblioteca, Sala Quezal, Insurgentes 25, Centro, San Miguel de Allende

2025 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary

Remarkable largely unknown footage of a dramatic turning point in world history covering events over three continents concerning a tragic coup in the Congo. Featuring: Maya Angelou, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy... Read more