Overview

• The documentary begins its theatrical run in France on October 1, introducing a free‑jazz energy that critics liken to an improvised concert experience.
• Belgian director Johan Grimonprez builds a 2‑hour‑30 found‑footage musical that revisits Congo’s 1960 independence and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.
• The film explores how American jazz functions as a narrative thread while examining reported cultural diplomacy and alleged CIA influence across Africa.
• L’Humanité praises the work’s original graphic form and rich, complex montage that probes multiple facets of Western postcolonialism.
• The release situates Grimonprez within a lineage of 1960s‑style montage cinema and follows his earlier archival experimentations such as Double Take.