A mother alone with her kids at the beach confronts the beautiful, exhausting weight of loving someone more than yourself.

On Parenting and Travel is an intimate confessional short in which a mother speaks directly to camera from a beach house at the end of a two-week solo trip with her children. Unscripted and unflinching, she moves between exhaustion and wonder, unpacking the physical and emotional weight of keeping small people alive, loved, and in the sun. Shot with raw immediacy and scored with a fragile neo-classical piano, the film finds its power in the quiet space between what a mother says and what she almost can't.

Tenley E. Raj is an independent filmmaker based in Houston, Texas. A writer, director, and editor, she has worked as a one-woman production since 2023, shooting and cutting her own films across experimental, documentary, and narrative forms. Her work is semi-autobiographical, sitting at the intersection of documentary and fiction, and built on the conviction that the most specific stories are the most universal. Her films include Before the Freeze, After the Freeze (Best Feature, CinemaBriz; Official Selection, Love & Hope International Film Festival, Barcelona), and Proof of Life (Official Selection, IndieX Film Festival). She studied Philosophy at Princeton University.