By Noah Katz, Bates Class of 2027

The last week of class was bittersweet. Wednesday was the Board of Directors’ final in-person meeting, which means the next steps for our Festival will be handled by the Festival Production Team. As the short-term quickly approaches, they will take the reins and head into the home stretch.

Start the countdown, because May 12th is less than two weeks away.

The energy in Olin 105 on Wednesday was unlike other classes this semester. We knew we had one last task to complete and only one class period to do it. Our final job was to decide which films at the 2026 Bates Film Festival would take home jury awards.

Of course, the prizes could not be selected by a simple majority vote; we had to consider numerous external factors before deciding which films were most deserving of the following awards: Best Documentary Feature, Best Fiction Feature, Best Documentary Short, and Best Fiction Short.

We had to ask ourselves, what will these awards do for the selected filmmakers? All of them would be able to give themselves a prestigious (potentially new) title, “award-winning filmmaker.” For some of the films we considered, this could be the first award in their filmmaking career. Our festival could inspire an artist to pursue larger, more ambitious projects and maybe even turn heads across the world. It was a heady thing to consider for a bunch of Bates College students sitting in a classroom on a rainy April day in Lewiston, Maine.

We also had to consider: what would the award do for the festival, and what story would our decision tell? If we have the opportunity to give an award to a film that we feel embodies the values and the vision of our festival, is that the “best” film in its category? Should we give our awards to the films that we felt changed our perception of the world around us, or is it our duty to award the films that we simply enjoyed viewing more than the others?

Bates Film Festival attendees may not remember that the large blockbuster film won Best Fiction Feature, but there’s a chance that people will reminisce on that one special short film or the smaller, more intimate film that won Best Documentary Feature for years to come. As our mission statement proudly states, we want to shine a light on thought-provoking films that bring individuals together, and if our decisions have the potential to do so, we should acknowledge which films would help us achieve our goals for this year’s festival.

“It’s been an exciting semester organizing the 2026 BFF, and I am very proud of the work that the Board of Directors has done together.”

As per usual, we organized ourselves into our documentary and fiction teams for the final time, colleagues we’ve screened films with, deliberated with, and collaborated with for the past four months.

Both groups began by discussing the best feature films in each category. The fiction team made their selection quickly, while my group, the documentary team, had a harder time picking our winner. To narrow down our choices, we each cast a preliminary vote. We ended up with four films in contention.

After some more debate, we reconvened with the fiction team to select the short film winners as a collective Board of Directors.

We began by discussing which documentary short would win, eliminated some films, and talked some more. We considered the implications of our decision, and after testimonies from numerous board members – some of which were very personal – we agreed on our winner. The fiction short film award took much longer than the doc short, as there were two pieces that we felt most deserved the festival’s recognition. Both aligned with our festival’s mission statement and left us with a new perspective on how art can convey important moments in people’s lives. This was the most difficult decision of the afternoon, but we eventually made our choice.

The class concluded with a final debate among the documentary team to select the winner of the “Best Documentary Feature” award. As class came to an end, we made our final decision and left Olin for the final time.

It’s been an exciting semester organizing the 2026 BFF, and I am very proud of the work that the Board of Directors has done together.

We have no doubt that you all will enjoy these films as much as we did.

Enjoy the show!