Shanti Thakur
School Director
Shanti Thakur
School Director
Education
BA, Ottawa University (Ottawa, Canada); BA, Concordia University (Montreal, Canada); MFA, Temple University
Bio
Shanti Thakur is Professor and Director of RIT’s School of Film and Animation. She is a Canadian-born filmmaker who was based in New York City for over twenty years. Her visually lush fiction and documentary films explore a wide spectrum of subjects—from science fiction to restorative justice—and are recognized for their poetic, dreamlike, and unconventional qualities.
Her work has screened at 200+ film festivals and museums worldwide, including the Cannes Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Flaherty Seminars, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She has received 37 international awards.
Thakur’s films examine how we perceive ourselves and each other through the prisms of history, memory, and identity. Moving fluidly between documentary, experimental, and narrative modes, her films—including Terrible Children, Red Tulips, Sky People, Kairos, Seven Hours to Burn, Two Forms, Circles, and Domino—have broadcast on the Sundance Channel, PBS, and in over twenty countries.
Her latest feature documentary, Terrible Children, is an intimate story piecing together her Indian father’s memories of boyhood in a right-wing paramilitary group, Muslim-Hindu violence during Partition, and his banishment for marrying a Danish woman. Told through vivid narrative, reimagined history, and chronicles of rising nationalism, the film reveals the emotional lives of boys fighting to become men. Terrible Childrenhas won Best Documentary Feature at the Berlin Indie Film Festival, Best Documentary at the Buffalo International Film Festival, and Best Feature Documentary at the Dreamers of Dreams Film Festival in London. It screened at the European Cultural Center’s Palazzo Michiel during the 2024 Venice Biennale.
Whether short or feature-length projects, Thakur serves as director, writer, editor, and producer. Her work has been supported by the National Film Board of Canada, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) in New York, and the Pew Fellowship in the Arts.
Currently Teaching
In the News
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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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December 17, 2024
Faculty exhibit in Venice earns a European Cultural Centre Award
A group of six faculty members in RIT’s College of Art and Design have earned the University & Research Projects Award from the European Cultural Centre (ECC) for their collection of works, titled “Cultural Disruptors.”
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July 18, 2023
Thakur’s film ‘Terrible Children’ earns accolades