From Omeleto.

A teenager is torn between her parents.

TSEHAI is used with permission from David Ramos and Sarah Shuman. Learn more at https://instagram.com/tsehai.theshort.

In the mid-2000s in Southern California, Tsehai is a biracial teenager living with her parents at home. But home is not a peaceful place for Tsehai. Her Ethiopian mother and white American father are often at odds with one another, and Tsehai often tries to keep the peace between them.

Their relationship reflects the internal pressure Tsehai feels to choose a side, torn between her Western culture and her Ethiopian roots. As some major family events loom on the horizon, Tsehai must reconcile the two halves of her heritage and identity.

Directed by David Ramos and Sarah Shuman and written by Shuman, this poignant short drama explores identity, belonging and the intricate dynamics of multicultural families through one teenage girl’s coming-of-age narrative. Rendered in compelling, emotionally intimate storytelling and gently sun-soaked visuals that relay both Tsehai’s warm emotional nature and her Californian milieu, Tsehai’s arc reflects the challenges many biracial people face in reconciling differing cultural norms and expectations within their family dynamics, especially as they take on the emotional labor of mediating their parents’ conflicts.

The writing has the gift of feeling specific to Tsehai but also relatable. Like many children from high-conflict homes, she feels torn between her parents as they fight and clash, and she tries to maintain a loving bond with both, even as the bond between mother and father frays. But there’s also intimate attention in the more specific everyday rituals of life, like when Tsehai and her mother dress her hair. But Tsehai also has to navigate other loaded family situations, such as a family dinner with her father’s side of the family. As the adults argue over politics, we can all relate to how she sinks into her meal, pretending that nothing is happening, even as the grown-ups steadfastly ignore that their abstract political discussion becomes personal for Tsehai.

As Tsehai, actor Maryna Bennett relays her essential desire to simply enjoy her life and love her family without the tension and rancor. She portrays her character’s general good nature, but also how the conflict and agendas around her force her to hold her emotions in. It takes a toll on her. But as Tsehai finds solace later with her mother’s Ethiopian family and its traditions of togetherness and family — and manages to pull every loved one into her orbit — she finds a gentle moment of peace, joy and belonging she’s been seeking all along.

Those final moments of simple familial joy leave viewers of TSEHAI with a gentle wash of poignant contentment and insight. Perhaps her parents may not immediately solve the deeper-seated problems in the family, Tsehai can bring together the disparate parts of herself into a sturdy sense of wholeness — one that stays stalwart, no matter how the adults in her life may go.