Multimedia documentary exhibition by Anna Stoeva at House Tranzit in Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Press release
Summary
In February 2026, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, will host the premiere of the project “In the Kitchen of My Heart” (In the Kitchen of My Heart) – an innovative initiative by Bulgarian documentary filmmaker Anna Stoeva. The exhibition explores the intersection between personal memory, family culinary traditions, and the major historical upheavals in Bulgaria over the last century.
Concept and themes
The project approaches the kitchen not only as a place for preparing food, but as a sacred space for preserving identity. Through tastes and aromas, the exhibition gives voice to stories that often remain “taboo” in official historical discourse. Key themes include:
The impact of industrialization on traditional cooking.
The traumas of the communist regime, including nationalization and shortages.
The ethnic cleansing of Bulgarian Turks (”The Revival Process”).
Prejudices against the Roma minority.
The protagonists and their stories
The exhibition follows the destinies of four women from Bulgaria:
Müzeen: A cook from a Bulgarian Turkish family, whose history is marked by forced expulsion and subsequent return.
Velichka Obreykova: The descendant of a prominent entrepreneurial family in Plovdiv, who loses her fortune under communism but retains her aristocratic culinary etiquette even in the squalor of a servants’ room.
Aunt Sneja: The enigmatic master of tripe soup at the famous Romani restaurant “La Aylyatin,” who keeps her recipes a closely guarded secret.
Lalka: Velichka’s granddaughter, who continues to pass on the family traditions today.
These narratives find parallels in the Romanian historical context, where famine and ideological assimilation similarly reshaped the culinary map of the region.
Visual and artistic language
Anna Stoeva transforms the historical space of Casa Tranzit into an immersive environment that includes:
Installations: Layers of white fabric, sheets of translucent dough, and projections inspired by magical realism.
“Living” still lifes: Four cinemagraphs (photographs with subtle, almost imperceptible movement), capturing key moments in cooking.
Documentary film: Three short documentaries (approximately 10 minutes each), which visitors can watch with headphones for an intimate experience.
Creative team and partners
The project is produced by tanuki films.
Writer and director: Anna Stoeva
Cinematographer: Carmen Tofeni
Sound: Ivan Manov
Music: Julian Stoyanov
Producers: Anna Stoeva, David Dzambazov, and Evgenia Evtimova.
The project is supported by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, through the Bulgarian National Culture Fund, in partnership with Casa Tranzit (Cluj), Luft Film (Bucharest), and the HRC Culinary Academy (Sofia).
About the author
Anna Stoeva is an established documentary filmmaker and producer, focused on the use of objects as carriers of memory. Her projects have participated in over 100 international festivals and received dozens of awards. She is also known as the co-author of the German series HAUSEN and a central figure in the international exhibition “We See Ukraine”.
Location and dates of Anna Stoeva’s exhibition:
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
February 20 – March 1, 2026
Opening: 6:00 p.m.
Casa Tranzit, 16 G. Barițiu Street, 400027 Cluj-Napoca, Romania Sofia, Bulgaria
Summer 2026
Gradoscope, Stochna Gară (Freight Station)
“In the Kitchen of My Heart” – A multimedia documentary exhibition, with the flavor of childhood memories, premiering in Cluj
Bulgarian documentary artist Anna Stoeva invites the public into the world of four very different Bulgarian women and their families through delicious and nostalgic family recipes. “In the Kitchen of My Heart” combines documentary film, storytelling, traditions, and a touch of magical realism in a multimedia exhibition that explores the history, identity, memories, and emotions carried by the daily ritual of food preparation. The exhibition will open in Cluj, Romania, at the Casa Tranzit cultural space on February 20, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. It will then be open to the public until March 1, between 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Context
Over the last century, industrialization has changed the way we prepare food at an unprecedented rate. The exhibition space transports us to a world of aromas, of old cooking methods that are on the verge of extinction, of nostalgia, but also of liberation from the prescriptive burden of tradition, memory and forgetting, loss and belonging. Beyond personal and intergenerational stories, cuisine also preserves stories from our shared past—about the tectonic processes that shook Bulgaria to its foundations during the 20th century.
The exhibition and accompanying documentary film are designed as a journey in which recipes provide us with an intimate and emotional key to understanding the great waves that have shaken Bulgaria over the last 100 years – the fall of communism, the ethnic cleansing of Bulgarian Turks, the barrier of prejudice against the Roma minority. Because sometimes, where words are taboo, the emotional environment of food can say a lot.
Characters
“In the Kitchen of My Heart” is a sensory journey guided by elements of women’s family recipes – images, sounds, videos, and associations based on objects, woven into the multidimensional world of the exhibition.
One of the stories traces the origins of the flavors that inspire the cuisine of Myuzeyen—a chef from a family of Bulgarian Turks who were forcibly displaced during the ethnic cleansing of the communist era, only to return a year later.
Another story follows Velichka Obreykova, a graduate of the Vienna Conservatory, who came from a prominent clan of entrepreneurs in Plovdiv, whose properties were confiscated after the advent of communism. Forced to leave their grand kitchen and settle in the maids’ room, she nevertheless preserved the delights of table etiquette and the culinary traditions of the Bulgarian elite through years of rationing and scarcity, passing on precious recipes to subsequent generations, right down to her granddaughter Lalka today.
We also visit Lelya Snezha, who has been preparing her iconic tripe soup at the renowned Roma restaurant “At Aylyatin’s” for 26 years, never changing a single spice and keeping the recipe a closely guarded secret, even from her own daughters. “They will learn when the time comes.”
Together, these personal stories reflect parallel experiences in Romania, where war, famine, and later communist austerity reshaped culinary traditions through scarcity, anti-bourgeois propaganda, and constant assimilation. As in Bulgaria, minority cuisines were often absorbed or renamed under nationalist cultural policies, while everyday cooking remained a sacred and intimate act behind closed doors, preserving identity and memory even when ingredients, homes, and social status were taken away.
Visual World
During the seven days of the exhibition, Anna Stoeva transforms the beautiful historic space of Casa Tranzit with layers of white fabric, sheets of translucent dough, projections, and installations inspired by the magical realism of cooking through the lens of childhood memories.
At the center of the space are four moving, breathing still lifes—four climactic and fragrant moments from each of the documentary stories. Each frame is a cinemagraph in which the movement is subtle, almost imperceptible. And the chef is absent.
Among the visual elements of the installation are the documentary stories of the protagonists—three short documentaries of about ten minutes each, which visitors can watch on a smaller screen with headphones, immersing themselves in each narrative. This allows for an immersive experience, both through watching a documentary story in its narrative form and through the environment that invites you to become part of it.
What’s next?
After the exhibition in Romania, which will be open until March 1, 2026, “In the Kitchen of My Heart” will be presented in Sofia in the summer of 2026, while the short documentary will participate in an international festival circuit. The exhibition will also be presented in the summer of 2026, in partnership with the Gradoscope Association, as part of the annual cultural event organized at Stochna Gara, the old freight station in Sofia.
Team & partners
Author and director Anna Stoeva; Director of photography Carmen Tofeni; Sound Ivan Manov; Producers Anna Stoeva and David Djambazov, tanuki films; Junior producer Evgenia Evtimova; Music Julian Stoyanov.
With stories by Müzeen Süleiman, Fatmeh Sarova, Lalka Obreykova, Aunt Snezha, and the team and customers of “At Ailyatin’s.”
The exhibition is organized and produced by tanuki films, with the support of the Romanian Cultural Center Casa Tranzit and Lorand Maxim (Cluj), in partnership with Luft Film (Bucharest) and the HRC Culinary Academy in Bulgaria (Sofia).
The project is realized with the financial support of the European Union - NextGenerationEU through the two-session grant program “Creation of Bulgarian productions and co-productions in the cultural and creative industries (CCI) sector and their promotion on European and international art markets,” funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan managed by the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria.
About the author
Anna Stoeva is a documentary artist, producer, and director. In her exploration of documentary art, in the exhibitions Priceless Objects, Pieces of Home, and The Shopping Cart for the Soul, she works with objects as containers of stories. Anna is the producer of the short films Red Light and Getting Fat In A Healthy Way, which have garnered 45 international awards and participated in over 100 festivals to date, and is the co-creator, together with Till Kleinert, of the German mystery and horror series HAUSEN (Sky Deutschland 2020). In 2023/2024, she was the driving force and one of the authors of the international exhibition “We See Ukraine,” presented in six renowned galleries in Bulgaria and Croatia.
tanuki films is an award-winning boutique production team based in Bulgaria, focusing on documentary films and art forms, journalism, and awareness campaigns, including “One in Four Friendship” with the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, “HEAR,” awarded as the best animated advertising film at the 8th edition of the Golden Kuker International Animation Film Festival - Sofia, and “Portraits of Freedom” with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. Since its founding in 2011, the company has created a series of documentaries focusing on social causes, investigative journalism segments, commercial and cause-oriented projects for clients such as Deutsche Welle, Channel 4, Pulse Media, Buzzfeed News, UNICEF, and Google.
Contact
evgenia@tanukifilms.com | Evghenia Evtimova
tranzit.foundation@gmail.com | Lorand Maxim