Before joining LVPA as Director of Academics, Santanu Chatterjee taught in the Cinema Division at Minneapolis College (MCTC) in Minnesota, USA, for sixteen years. He was the founding head of the Directing program at MCTC. He moved to Minneapolis from Colorado where he supervised a video and multimedia training program for Colorado Department of Corrections inmates. Santanu has also taught film production and screenwriting at the University of Malta in Europe, and sound recording/design as a teaching assistant at Syracuse University in New York. Originally from Kolkata, India, Santanu moved to the USA in 1983 to study filmmaking. He has an MFA in film from Syracuse University, New York. Santanu’s short film Rose From Concrete won first place at the Jaro/Peachtree Village International Film Festival in 2018. His 2010 short film, It Does Not Die won an Accolade Award. In 2015 Santanu received a Minnesota State Arts Board (MSAB) Cultural Community Partnership grant (in collaboration with Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis) to direct three experimental video pieces entitled: The Sufi Video Project. He has participated as a panelist on MSAB’s Artist Initiative Grant, and the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival’s Minnesota-Made Feature award. Santanu has also served as a director on the board of St. Paul Neighborhood Network, as a jury member on the University Film and Video Association’s Carole Fielding Grant panel, and the 6th Grand Prix International Video Dance competition sponsored by UNESCO. He received several Teaching Excellence awards during his tenure at MCTC.