The Nicola Valley Film Society kicks off another slate of intriguing features from home and abroad later this month from a new location.

On Monday, Sept. 20, the curtains will rise at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology’s lecture hall when the society shows Cooking with Stella, a 2009 Canadian film.

The lecture hall was built earlier this year. Previously, the society played movies at the Merritt Civic Centre.

“We’re really looking forward to moving to NVIT,” says Cathy Starr, the society’s president. She adds that the NVIT lecture hall, with a built-in screen and fixed, theatre-style seating, is far more suited to playing movies than the Merritt Civic Centre.

The Nicola Valley Film Society shows six films a season, once per month from September to March except for December, when the society takes a break for the busy holidays.

Cooking with Stella is Indo-Canadian director Dilip Mehta‘s first feature film, following his 2008 documentary, The Forgotten Woman. Mehta and his sister, Deepa, an art-film director famed for movies like Earth, Water, and Fire, co-wrote the film.

The plot concerns a couple that moves so the wife can work at the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi.

The husband, a trained chef and stay-at-home dad, convinces Stella, the cook at the High Commission, to teach him the secrets of Indian cooking.

She reluctantly agrees and comes to enjoy the lessons. At the same time, however, Stella skims from the High Commission’s stock to pad her own salary and must deal with another new arrival, a nanny, who threatens to expose her scam.

“We thought it would be fun to have an East Indian movie because it’s right before the Rotary East Indian dinner,” explains Starr, referring to the annual Taste of India event in Merritt.

Since the society was already planning to show Cooking with Stella, it decided to push the showing up in its schedule to coincide with Taste of India.

The rest of the films will be a mix of Canadian and foreign features, mainly independently produced.

“We try to go for things that aren’t really mainstream,” says Starr, adding that the society shies away from Hollywood blockbusters.

Instead, the movies the society plays are “something that could be in a video store but most people haven’t seen.”