ABOUT

Claire Ave’Lallemant (she/her) is a queer editor who chose to forgo the traditional college path in favor of a grassroots, hands-on education, beginning as an assistant editor on Cecilia Aldarondo’s Memories of a Penitent Heart (POV). She credits the film with showing her the power of the medium to reach into hearts to change minds—and has been in love with documentaries ever since. 

After assisting on several features, Claire graduated herself into the main editor seat and has gone on to become a Karen Schmeer Film Editing fellow and Sundance Institute Documentary Edit Residency artist recognized for “embracing new forms of storytelling and finding new language to express personal truths.” 

Her credits include feature films such as Flipside (Toronto) and Drowning in Silence (Santa Barbara); series including Choir (Disney+, 2024 IDA’s Best Limited Series nominee), Dogs (Netflix), and The Pharmacist (Netflix); as well as shorts like Translators (Tribeca X, 2023 Best Short Award) and Final Finishers (ESPN+).

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 helps create events within the Alliance of Documentary Editors (ADE)  with a focus on bringing editors into community with one another. Given her own path, it is deeply important, 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+, identity, family archives and relationships, generational trauma, mental health, and memory.