Rochester Institute of Technology News
Film and Animation BFA

Arriving at RIT for the first time can be daunting; it means new faces, new (mostly brick) buildings, and some unwritten rules that students must learn on their own. We asked a few seasoned Tigers for advice on the RIT student experience.

Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Film and Animation is among the top 25 film schools in the United States, according to the most recent list published by The Hollywood Reporter. RIT was ranked number 21 this year, marking a continued rise in rank from previous years.

The Floating Pavilion, part of a Floating Garden food forest envisioned by New York-based interdisciplinary artist Mary Mattingly, was created by RIT students.

RIT’s School of Film and Animation has been continuously recognized as being among the best film and animation schools in the country. The latest recognition comes from Variety magazine’s 2026 Education Impact Report.

During their third year at RIT, the pair unexpectedly enrolled in the same partner-based sound recording classand worked together on a quarter-long project. The assignment provided a golden opportunity to learn more about each other while exploring the Rochester region.

Cartoon Brew interviews Christine A. Banna, assistant professor in the School of Film and Animation, about her creative process for animating Moira Smiley's "Haiku" music video.

Recognizing the growing demand for globally fluent creatives, RIT has partnered with Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts to launch a new student exchange program designed to prepare students for the realities of globalized creative industries.

Forward-thinking faculty; curriculum that fuses technology, the arts, and design; and a legacy of priming students with a maker mentality helped RIT’s School of Film and Animation maintain its place on TheWrap’s list of Top 50 Film Schools of 2025.

Ricky Figueora taking over as the new director of RIT's School of Film and Animation headlines exciting promotions and additions to the College of Art and Design faculty.

The new MAGIC Spell grants, earmarked for digital media projects in art, games, interactivity, and creativity, provide RIT researchers in any college with funding up to $5,000 to help in their pursuits to secure additional external grants in their fields.

The Character Mosaic Project is a recently revived initiative that aims to build a library of 3D characters — diverse in their ethnicities and backgrounds — that are open source for animators to seamlessly use as a broader range of subjects in their films. The project is led by Kevin Bauer, graduate director of the film and animation MFA program.

Accomplished alumni, creative technology research, and interdisciplinary program offerings set RIT’s School of Film and Animation apart from others on The Hollywood Reporter’s 2025 top film schools list. RIT was ranked number 22 this year, a leap ahead from the school’s rank in 2024.