Campus Crops and Midnight Kitchen present... The Global Banquet: A film-screening and discussion on food politics!

Click to embiggen.

Campus Crops and Midnight Kitchen, your favorite vegan student-run kitchen on campus, are hosting a free film screening followed by a discussion this December 3 at 4h30pm*. The event will take place in the Madeleine Parent Room* (former Breakout Room), on the 2nd floor of the SSMU building. Free popcorn and tea will be provided!

The movie is called "The Global Banquet: By Invitation Only" and covers a vast array of food politics issues. The Global Banquet was released in 2001, so the issues presented are not always up to date, but it makes a great job at presenting succinctly most of them. It is mainly focused on globalization and the workings of the global market, so it has that alter-globalist touch common to activist movements of the late 90s and early 2000s.

The presentation on the DVD box says: "The two-part, 50-minute program explores the politics that threaten global food security, and demonstrates the destructive aspects of the corporate globalization of food. Produced to create public awareness, The Global Banquet shows how a handful of powerful corporations control the world’s food system, endangering the livelihoods of small farmers in the U.S. and developing countries. The program examines how corporate globalization of food supplies is contributing to mounting hunger worldwide, despite an overabundance of food. The perspectives of farmers, indigenous people, environmentalists, church groups and students working to change unjust free trade policies are included in the documentary."

Here's a recent review of the movie. (I'm not sure if this is fortunate or unfortunate, but I haven't been able to find any negative reviews.)

My personal take on the movie (me=Carl) is that The Global Banquet is so dense in content it sometimes barely scratches the surface of some problems in our food system. But that's good for our purpose: the movie is actually much better for starting a discussion, and sharing what we know and how we feel about those issues, than to gain in-depth information about the topics at hand. 

*Date and location may change because one does not simply book a room at SSMU and receive confirmation well ahead of the date the event will take place.

There's a Facebook event right here.