Come to talk about the filmmaking perspective behind the sensory journey of «In My Heart’s Kitchen» where images, sound, video, and objects intertwine in a multimedia exhibition. We will discuss with Anna Stoeva about how she combined film, art, and documentary to reveal the poetry of food – tracing memory, displacement, heritage, and intimate family histories through cinematic storytelling – and explore how you can apply similar approaches to your own creative projects.

📍Tranzit House
🕐14:00
📅 21 February 2026 (Saturday) – visit the exhibition from 21 February until 1 March

«In My Heart’s Kitchen» is a sensory journey guided by the elements of the women’s family recipes – images, sound, video, and object-based associations intertwined in the multidimensional world of the exhibition.

One story traces the origin of the flavors that inspire Myuzeyen’s cooking – a chef from a family of Bulgarian Turks who were forcibly displaced for what they thought would be forever during communist-era ethnic cleansing, only to return a year later.

Another follows Velichka Obreykova, a Vienna Conservatory graduate from a prominent Plovdiv clan of entrepreneurs, whose properties were confiscated after the rise of communism. Forced to leave their grand kitchen and settle in the maids’ room, she nevertheless preserved the delicacies of table etiquette and culinary traditions of the Bulgarian elite through years of coupons and scarcity, passing the treasured recipes down through generations to her granddaughter Lalka today.

We also visit lelya Snezha, who for 26 years has prepared her iconic tripe soup in the famed Romani diner “At Aylyatin’s,” never altering a single spice and keeping the recipe a closely guarded secret, even from her own daughters. “They will learn it when the time comes.”

---

Anna Stoeva is a documentary artist, director, and producer. In recent years, she has become known for the exhibitions “(In)valuable objects”, featuring objects belonging to women killed in domestic violence cases; “Pieces of Home”, telling the stories of items arriving in Bulgaria from Ukraine; and “A Consumer Basket for the Soul” — a glimpse into the human soul through stories from the supermarket checkout conveyor belt.
In 2023/2024, she was the driving force and one of the authors of the international exhibition WE SEE UKRAINE, presented in six leading galleries in Bulgaria and Croatia.
Anna is the producer of the short films “Red Light” and “Getting Fat in a Healthy Way”, which have won 45 international awards and screened at over 100 festivals. Together with Til Kleinert, she is also the creator of the German Gothic horror series Hausen (Sky Deutschland, 2020).

Over the past ten years, through her production company tanuki films, she has worked on numerous documentary and multimedia projects situated at the intersection of documentary art and meaningful social causes.
The discussion is going to be held in English.