Zion Murphy: MCS Grad to Filmmaker & Educator

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 13:42:56 -0500
mcsalum

By: Bryan Dang

Photo Credit: Zion Murphy

Meet Zion Murphy, he is a man of many things. A filmmaker, cultural worker, and educator, you immediately get the feeling that every part of his life story has been driven by a passion and belief in the power of storytelling. Zion graduated from UMBC in 2022 and the following years after that followed a path of revelation through artistic rigor, leadership through his community and wanting to spread his passion of expanding people's views on how we understand the world through media.

Zion started at UMBC as a double major in Media & Communication Studies and Linguistics, but over time he slowly developed a stronger passion for MCS. He said that after taking MCS 222 with Professor Kathalene Razzano, he found that he was "falling in love with analyzing the media that shapes the world around us", and how culture, communities, and politics are all shaped through media. So after two semesters he primarily focused on MCS. This growing curiosity for media grew into a larger passion: a desire to create films that challenge dominant narratives, inspire audiences, and create stories that have authentic cultural roots.

For Zion, filmmaking is more than a passion and craft, it is a way of understanding humanity. He describes cinema as "the most complete art form. It combines photography, writing, sound, music, movement, speech, color, and much more." This complexity is what drives him in his passion for filmmaking. He states that it is "a very powerful tool for both social change and documenting important, globally-connected, human values." This belief is seen through his projects as he creates films that disrupts the current system, gives rise to marginalized voices, and prompts viewers to see the world differently.

After graduating from UMBC, Zion chose to take a gap year to dedicate it to perfecting his craft. During this time, he improved his extensive portfolio in which he was shooting music videos, taking still photos and wrote articles for the website Screen Spec. The year served as a time for creative freedom while polishing his skills in the career he wants to pursue. His work paid off as he was accepted into Howard University's Graduate Film Program, one of the top and respected MFA programs in the country and is an HCBU. He is on track to graduate with his MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Spring 2026. During that time he has written and directed multiple short films and worked in every department in order to expand his view of filmmaking.

While working on his masters, he is also working as a graduate assistant and teaches two undergraduate film classes at Howard University. He creates the curriculum for both classes in hopes to inspire his students to improve their craft. His favorite part of the job is "being able to mentor younger filmmakers and seeing both their love for film and their technical skills grow during the semester." His teaching philosophy reflects his own personal standards in film. Being critical, intentional, and lastly passionate.

Zion started his college career at Howard University then transferred to UMBC saying it was his first choice for a college. What he learned at UMBC shaped the person and professional he would become. UMBC changed his global perspective on media through a respect for intercultural communication, and he learned that media is a powerful tool for political and social change. He thanks the MCS program for teaching him to look beyond the broader sense of media and to look at media with awareness of its history in historical context, political impacts, and identity. He said that certain classes did change his perspective on media. He said that "MCS 311 'Films of Resistance' started me on a path of subversive and revolutionary filmmaking by exposing me to films made outside of the traditional Hollywood model." He also said that capstone classes like MCS 399 and 499 with Professor Fan Yang and Dr. Elizabeth Patton opened his mind "to how the history of media and communications is paired with progressive politics." He learned from many MCS theorists such as Marx and Engels, Bell Hooks, Stuart Hall, Antonio Gramsci, Laura Mulvey, Marshall McLuhan changed his perspective on how he consumes media and forced him to look at it more actively rather than passively and to create products that promote positive radical change. One highlight in his UMBC career was he was featured on UMBC's episode of The College Tour on Amazon Prime, which was his first experience seeing professional filmmakers in action. It reaffirmed his passion that he wanted to be behind the camera creating his own stories.

When asking Zion about a piece of advice he would give to MCS students that want to work in filmmaking, his answer is a simple one: "Just start." He emphasizes that filmmaking comes from the individual, not what equipment they have. "Don't worry about your camera's quality or working with a big time actor," he says. "Focus on finding your own unique voice and way of seeing the world, then translate that into images." Lastly, he shares a phrase that was given directly to him from legendary filmmakers: "Tell your grandma's story." So what does this mean exactly? It means to "not shy away from your background, create stories from your own cultural context that are important to you and find your community. Lean on that community to find your passion and ultimately your creative voice.". In the end for Zion, filmmaking is not just the process of creating art, it's about building a connection with the viewers through a collected vision, and he hopes to do that in many films in the future.