Jenny Murray

This article is about the American actress and filmmaker and is not to be confused with Jenn Murray or Jenni Murray.

Jennifer Elizabeth Murray^[1][2][3] is an American actress and filmmaker. She has played lead roles in music videos for Vampire Weekend^[4][5][6][7] and in short films (some of which she also wrote, directed and produced), and wrote, directed, edited, and produced ¡Las Sandinistas! (2018),^[2][8] a documentary about women who lead combat and implemented social reforms in Nicaragua during the 1979 Sandinista Revolution and the subsequent Contra War in the 1980s.^{[2][9][10][11]}

Jenny Murray at the Cardozo Education Campus, Washington, D.C., 2019

Biography

Murray is 'an Irish girl from Chicago,' as she put it herself.^[12][13][14] Before her film career, she was working as a licensed associate on Watermill's stock trading desk in New York.^[1][11]

She has played the lead roles in Vampire Weekend music videos Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (2008)^[5] and Giving Up the Gun (2010),^[7] respectively as a goth girl seeking to convert her boyfriend (Vampire Weekend singer Ezra Koenig) into a goth boy,^[4] and a tennis player winning an indoor tournament against eccentric tennis players including ultimately herself.^[6]

In 2011 and 2013, she played lead roles in two short films, Morning Routine and Side Effects May Include: Time Travel, respectively as Abby who after a one-night stand won't leave her lover's home,^[15] and Linda who travels back in time to prevent the relationship with her husband, and discovers that her husband is doing exactly the same.^[16]

She wrote, directed and co-produced Last Chance, Bonne Chance (2013), a short film in which she played Anna, one of the two lead roles. The other lead role was Abby, played by Zonia Pelensky. The film tells the story of two young women who want to escape their lives in New York and to accomplish that commit a crime.^[17]

She wrote, directed, edited and produced The Night to Make Believe (2014), a short drama in which she played the lead role of Mary.^[18]

In 6-minute Mom (2014), she played Jamie, one of the lead roles. The short drama is about when you find out that the person who is closest to you appears to be a stranger.^[19] In Take It Easy (2014), a short drama in which a family goes out for dinner but cannot decide who will pay the check, she appears as Brynn.^[20] She plays the role of the title person in short comedy This Is Mary (2014), a woman who finds a way to feel unique in the world.^[21] In short fantasy film In Through the Night (2015), Murray plays the lead role Ava, a woman who is haunted by the past and ends up in a world of memories and ghosts, and narrates the story.^[22] In short drama Catherine (2017), she played the lead role, a woman who assumes the identity of a stranger to dispel discontent.^[23]

Murray has graduated from Columbia University in New York in film, Latin American history, and photography.^[11]

In 2018 she released her first feature documentary film, ¡Las Sandinistas!,^[2][8] about women who lead combat and implemented social reforms in Nicaragua in the Sandinista Revolution, 1979, and the subsequent Contra war in the 1980s, which saw them having to fight again for equality within and under the Sandinista government. Murray wrote, directed, edited and produced the documentary, spending several years researching, interviewing and shooting.^{[12][13][14][24]} The film has been screened at a number of venues and has won several awards. Murray has spoken to audiences about the film in many places across the world.^[9]

She plays Maggie, one of the lead roles in short drama Portrait: Wedding, recently completed.^[25] In Red, a thriller currently in post-production, she plays the lead role of Paulette, a psychiatric patient who has fled into the wild and found shelter in a remote cabin with a mysterious man.^[26]

In recent years, Murray has also worked as a researcher on the films and television projects of other writers and directors, usually co-writing scripts for historical or political dramas or biographies.