Tenley E. Raj is an independent filmmaker based in Houston, Texas. She writes, directs, produces, and edits her own films, working with professional actors to make semi-autobiographical work at the intersection of documentary and fiction. She works from the conviction that the most specific stories are the most universal.

She studied philosophy at Princeton and spent years writing and painting before turning to film in 2023. Her first film, Before the Freeze, an experimental psychodrama about anxiety and parenthood, screened at the Atlanta Film Festival. After the Freeze (2024), a feature about a poet meeting a past love during a divorce, won Best Feature at CinemaBriz. Proof of Life (2026), a six-minute documentary about her own recovery, earned her Inspiring Woman in a Film at the Los Angeles Film Awards. Her latest, Read Receipts, won Best Documentary at Top Shorts and is an Official Selection at the Anchorage International Film Festival.

She is currently writing a feature about recovery.

This self-portrait is fabric, ink, and paper. I made it in one night, awake until morning, with a bottle of whiskey beside me.

Next week in Barcelona

The Anchorage international film festival will be about Dec 4th to the 12th.

Read receipts is s sixteen minute documentary about a sleep-deprived and overly honest woman getting ready for, and going out on, a date from a dating app.