African Couch Potato

African Couch Potato is a South African perspective on all things film and television. Hosted by award-winning TV producer, Gino Shelile, it mashes up in-studio interviews with industry professionals, titles to check out each week, a current film or series review, and a look at old movies that are worth rewatching.

All Episodes

African Couch Potato

S3 Ep51 Miguel Eek on “Amilcar”

June 22, 2026 • Gino Shelile, Miguel Eek • Season 3 • Episode 51

0:00 | 16:27

Something different this week. Among the nearly 60 titles on offer at the recent Encounters documentary festival was Miguel Eek's Amilcar. Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973) was a thinker and an African leader. He led the anticolonial armed struggle in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde against Portugal but was assassinated 8 months before those countries became independent.

Miguel Eek was born in Madrid in 1982. Raised between Mallorca, Stockholm and Barcelona, where he graduated in Documentary Filmmaking at the Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (ESCAC). He completed his training at the Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki.

Amilcar is a decade long project, drawing on letters to his wives, which seeks to move beyond iconography and return Amílcar Cabral to the realm of the human, the fragile, and the unfinished.

ACP managed to grab a fascinating few minutes with the filmmaker, between him delivering a Live Masterclass to an enthusiastic audience at the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg on the complexities of running a 10 year movie project, and having to rush off to a sponsor's lunch.

And a reminder of our new crowdfunding campaign to help us bring you ACP in glorious video, so you can watch as well as listen. There's a whole bunch of rewards depending on your donations. Check that out at Thundafund - African Couch Potato. Every little bit helps.

Yes? No? Send us a text

Let us know what you think, what movie or series you would like to see featured, or just to tell us how brilliant it all is:
instagram.com/africancouchpotato
x.com/africancouchpot
gino.arlechino@gmail.com

WhatsApp Channel: Mzansi Film News, Views and Reviews

YouTube; African Couch Potato - YouTube

https://www.patreon.com/c/AfricanCouchPotato

Gino Shelile’s profile • Letterboxd
Member of the Film Critics Association of South Africa (FCASA)

Produced by Ted Loukes and A10 Consulting
ted@aten.co.za

Music by The_Mountain from Pixabay

Gino Shelile

Host