Claire Orfield is a senior at Bates College, double-majoring in Politics and Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies. She is especially interested in how films can initiate and facilitate discussions about social justice issues. In 2024, as a Bates Film Festival Board Member, Claire led a Q&A with a documentary filmmaker and a Maine State Senator about gun culture and private paramilitary training camps in her home state of Texas and other US locales. Since the last festival, Claire has completed several film studies courses, studied abroad for a semester, and work extensively with a non-profit housing organization. This winter and spring, in addition to planning the 2026 festival, Claire is completing her Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies thesis, which explores the limits of cross-cultural empathy in films like Moonlight. Her Politics thesis, completed in last fall, interrogated the theoretical role of the state and its obligations toward immigrants. She is excited to return to the BFF board and cannot wait to see what discussions the festival cultivates this year.