From a jar to you

2025
Film (ongoing project)
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This work unfolds in the Bulgarian village of Kukuryak, where every year many residents leave their homes to work seasonally in the Netherlands and Belgium.

In Eastern European tradition, food preservation is an essential part of life. Each year, people cultivate, harvest, and transform fruits and vegetables into jars of sauces and jams to sustain them through the winter. Often, people from the same village travel to the same country or city for work migration routes that continue through family ties and word of mouth.

Through this documentary film, I explore how the global food economy shapes local culture and personal life. By staying in the village and building relationships with people involved in these migration networks, I sought to understand their rhythm of life their departures and returns, their hopes, and the traces they leave behind. 
The film observes how care and survival are expressed through small acts of preservation. Food holds an equal role in this story. Jars of tomato-paprika sauce, peaches, honey, and chili peppers are not merely sustenance  each one carries memory, patience, and a sense of home. Within the film, food also becomes a way to express longing a tender language through which people remember and stay connected to one another across distance.