Junior Mohit Shrestha works culinary magic in the Pannill Commons kitchen.

For most, it started out as just another one of those quiet Tuesday afternoons—lunch, afternoon classes, and maybe a trip down to the T.I. Down in the kitchen of the commons, however, it was quiet a different story. A dozen or so Hampden-Sydney International students were chopping away in preparation for the club’s biggest event of the semester—the International Film and Food Festival. A delicious aroma of spices filled the air as the students bustled around stirring, grilling, frying, seasoning, jerking, and mashing their respective cuisines.

As 6:00 pm quickly approached the group moved all the food up to the Chairman’s Room where an anxious crowd of students, teachers, and staff swarmed in. After Ben Brown, president of the International Club, opened with a short remark, the hungry and curious clique flocked the buffet. Asian dishes feawtured included Nepalese Chicken Curry prepared by Mohit Shrestha, Chinese Kung-Pao Chicken by Tian Shihao and Ke Shang, and Garlic Fried Shrimp by Burma’s Nay Min. Western dishes included Irish Bangers and Mash by Lorcan Duffy and Currywurst cooked by German students Arne Ulbrich and Hendrik Ziller. The famous Caribbean Jerk Chicken and Festivals was also prepared by our Jamaican students Osric Forrest and Basil Panton.

Everyone got plenty of time to revisit the buffet before settling down for the second part of the event—the showing of Catch a Fire. The movie featuring Derek Luke and Tim Robins retails the real life story of Patrick Chamusso–a black South African oil refinery foreman whose encounter and interrogation by a cruel investigator, played by Robins, convinces him to abandon his family and fight against the oppressive apartheid regime. Aside from telling an emotional and suspenseful story, the movie also gave a very insightful take on the cultural, racial, and political state of South Africa in the 1980s under the Apartheid regime.

At the end of the film, Dr. Gantsho, an international visiting scholar coming to our college from South Africa, who attended the event with his wife, commented on the movie and the familiarity of watching it from South African eyes. After a brief question and answer period between Dr. Gantsho and the audience, the event came to closing remarks and the crowd departed.

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