Gingger Shankar
Gingger Shankar is a filmmaker, artist, activist, composer, and the only female double violinist in the world. As a Sundance and WIRED fellow and a speaker for TED, Davos, Rotary International, and the Cartier Women’s Initiative championing girls’ education and empowerment and the environment, she has sparked conversation and inspired audiences worldwide with stories from her family bringing Indian music to the west, women-led environmental frontline battles, and beyond. She has worked with visionary women in media such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Ava DuVernay, Stacey Abrams, and more, and was the first Indian woman on the Sundance Artist board (with Rashida Jones and Mark Ruffalo), as well as the first Indian American composer invited to AMPAS/The Academy.
Gingger Shankar is a frequent speaker for TED, Davos, UNESCO, the Nobel Prize Summit, Carbon Footprint Summit, the Cartier Women’s Initiative, and more championing girls’ education and empowerment, and the environment.
Topics of Expertise
KINDNESS & EMPATHY THROUGH ART
FEMALE EMPOWERMENT
ACTIVISM THROUGH ART
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
TELLING OUR OWN STORIES
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION
SHANKAR FAMILY MUSIC & HISTORY
VIOLIN & DOUBLE VIOLIN
Gingger Shankar is a filmmaker, composer, and the only female double violinist in the world. A frequent speaker for TED, championing girls’ education and empowerment, she has worked with First Lady Michelle Obama, Ava Duvernay, Stacey Abrams, AOC, New Georgia Project and more.
She was chosen as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces to Watch” and her multimedia project Himalaya Song, which addressed climate change, was named one of the “10 Best Music Films at Sundance” by Rolling Stone.
She is co-founder of Little Indian Girl Collective and founder of Little Indian Girl Productions, with upcoming projects including the feature documentary Promises of Our Grandmothers (director/producer), which chronicles an indigenous resistance camp’s fight against the Line 3 pipeline, and Nari: The Women Behind A Music Revolution (director/producer), which is the unsung story of the women of the Shankar family - her mother and grandmother. She produced official 2018 Sundance Film Festival selection Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock as well as the 2020 album And She Could Be Next - a companion to the Ava DuVernay-executive produced docuseries - featuring Aloe Blacc, Tarriona ‘Tank’ Ball, Saul Williams, and more.
She wrote, directed, and produced multiple spots for South Asians for Biden ahead of the 2020 election and wrote the song “Promises of Our Grandmothers,” which was featured in the 2021 Nobel Prize Summit and was the inspiration for the corresponding documentary.
Gingger is also co-founder of Naughty Horses Records, which releases music by dynamic women artists from around the world alongside the preservation of culturally vital global classical recordings, including many of the Shankar family records dating back to the 1930s.