ABOUT

Claire Ave’Lallemant (she/her) is a queer documentary editor who chose to forgo the traditional college path and pursue grassroots, hands-on education which she received as an assistant editor on Cecilia Aldarondo’s Memories of a Penitent Heart (POV). She credits this film for showing her the power of the medium to reach into hearts and change minds and has been hopelessly in love with documentaries ever since. After assisting on several features, Claire was nominated and selected for the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship in 2018. She has gone on to edit features such as Flipside (Toronto) and Drowning in Silence (Santa Barbara); as well as series including Choir (Disney+, IDA Best Limited Series nominee 2024) and The Pharmacist and Dogs (both for Netflix); in addition to shorts such as Final Finishers and Translators (Tribeca X, Best Short Award).

With an appreciation for debating the craft, she has served on the awards juries for IDA’s Best Editing and Best Feature categories as well as Charlotte Film Festival’s Best Documentary. She is active within the Alliance of Documentary Editors (ADE) as a creator of events with a focus on bringing editors into community to uplift and educate on their unique role. It is deeply important, given her own path, for Claire to create opportunities for mentorship within her edit teams regardless of tight schedules or remote collaboration.

Considering herself to be a storyteller first and foremost, Claire believes editing documentaries is inherently writing and focuses on projects which aim to bring more compassion into this challenging world. Our work can help reimagine and build the world we want to live in. While open to exploring stories of all kinds, she is keenly interested in arthouse approaches as well as those which center LGBTQIA+, women, identity, family archives and relationships, generational trauma, mental health, and memory.