Dr. Sneha Samaddar

Bio

Dr. Sneha Samaddar is an experienced academic leader, film educator, researcher, filmmaker, and institution-builder with a multidisciplinary background spanning Film Studies, Cinema and Media, Communication, Gender and Culture, and Film & Television Production. She currently serves as the Director & Associate Professor at the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Institute, MIT World Peace University, Pune, where she provides academic and strategic leadership for the development of the Film School, with a focus on academic planning, curriculum development, faculty coordination, student engagement, industry interface, interdisciplinary initiatives, and institutional growth.

With a PhD in Film Studies from Symbiosis International University, Dr. Samaddar’s doctoral research examined “Cinematic Representation of Women Protagonists in Partition Narratives: A Study of Hindi and Bengali Films.” She has also been awarded a Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) from Symbiosis International University.

She holds two Master’s degrees—an M.A. in English and Communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, and an M.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism from Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology. She also holds a B.Ed. in English and Social Science from Maharishi Dayanand University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, a B.A. (Honours) in English Literature from the University of Delhi, and a B.A. in Bharatnatyam from Allahabad University.

Over the course of her academic career, Dr. Samaddar has undertaken progressively significant teaching, leadership, administrative, and planning responsibilities. She has served as Head of the Department of Film and TV Production at Lovely Professional University and as Associate Dean, School of Cinema at the Asian Academy of Film and Television (AAFT), Noida, where she contributed to departmental development, academic restructuring, and the design of e-learning modules in Cinema and Mass Communication. She has also held academic leadership responsibilities at Galgotias University, including faculty coordination and institutional media initiatives.

As a researcher, Dr. Samaddar works at the intersection of cinema, history, gender, memory, trauma, migration, and representation. Her research has been published and presented at national and international platforms, including the International Communication Association (ICA) and IAMCR. Her academic work reflects a sustained engagement with questions of gender, social history, representation, and the cultural role of cinema.

Her professional engagement with cinema extends beyond academia. She has worked as an Assistant Director on the documentary Anonymous, which was showcased at the Visions du Réel International Film Festival in Nyon, Switzerland, and has undertaken specialised training in Film Appreciation through the National Film Archive of India and Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune.

Dr. Samaddar has also been actively involved in academic conferences, research initiatives, curriculum development, e-learning, faculty development, student mentorship, academic administration, and institutional media initiatives. She has been part of the organising committee of international conferences on Media and Communication and has contributed to the development of academic and digital learning environments.

As an academic leader, her vision is to build film education that is professionally relevant, academically rigorous, creatively stimulating, interdisciplinary, and socially conscious. She is particularly committed to developing institutions where filmmaking practice, critical scholarship, industry exposure, research, and collaborative learning work together to prepare students for the rapidly evolving landscape of cinema and the media and entertainment industry.