Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is a 2024 documentary film directed by Johan Grimonprez about the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. For this film we created +360 title cards.
...Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” pulses through the background as we’re introduced to the main historical players. Sprightly title cards, designed by Hans Lettany, cast Malcolm X, former Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev, Lumumba’s chief of protocol Andrée Blouin and former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, for example, as characters in a fictional sitcom.
—Hollywood Reporter
...“Soundtrack” largely centers on events of 1960, depending almost entirely upon archival footage as well as the memoirs and writings of leaders and operatives from the time. Text — beautifully designed text, in fact, the work of the designer Hans Lettany — provides historical context and voices from the moment, underscored by on-screen citations (right down to the page number).
—The New York Times