Shanti Thakur
Professor
Shanti Thakur
Professor
Education
BA, Ottawa University (Ottawa, Canada); BA, Concordia University (Montreal, Canada); MFA, Temple University
Bio
Shanti Thakur is a Professor and Director of RIT’s College of Art and Design’s Digital Summer Institute and former Director of RIT’s School of Film and Animation. A Canadian-born filmmaker, she began her career at the National Film Board of Canada and has since created a wide range of fiction and documentary films exploring subjects from science fiction to restorative justice. Her work investigates how history, memory, and identity shape the ways we perceive ourselves and one another.
Thakur’s films have been broadcast on the Sundance Channel, PBS, and in 22 countries, and have screened at more than 200 film festivals and museums worldwide, including Cannes, the Hamptons International Film Festival, the Montreal World Film Festival, the Margaret Mead Film Festival, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Known for their poetic, dreamlike, and unconventional qualities, her films have received 39 international awards. Her most recent feature documentary, Terrible Children, won multiple international awards—including Best Documentary Feature at the Berlin Indie Film Festival—and was showcased at the 2024 Venice Biennale, where it received the European Cultural Center Prize. Thakur’s work has also been supported by fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Independent Filmmaker Project in New York, and the Pew Fellowship in the Arts.
In the News
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May 2, 2025
RIT casts a bright light at national iron arts conference
Between a moving performance, building an award-winning iron-melting device, and featured exhibitions, RIT students, faculty, staff and alumni were present in every corner of the National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art and Practices.
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April 24, 2025
‘Variety’ names RIT as one of the top film schools in North America
RIT’s School of Film and Animation has a growing reputation in Hollywood and has been recognized by the entertainment industry for its high-achieving alumni who graduate with expertise in cutting-edge technology.
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March 27, 2025
RIT’s School of Film and Animation continues to rise in rankings
Student’s access to state-of-the-art facilities and software, impressive faculty with industry experience, and a wealth of opportunities for hands-on learning before graduation has earned RIT’s School of Film and Animation (SOFA) more recognition as one of the top animation schools in the nation.
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May 1, 2025
Thakur speaks on podcast
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July 18, 2023
Thakur’s film ‘Terrible Children’ earns accolades