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Reality Check Forum 2026 / Masterclass

Cutting Through Crisis:

Editing Masterclass

Editing is where documentary finds its final form — where story is discovered, the audience experience is built, and meaning is shaped in the space between image and sound. But the editorial challenges shift dramatically depending on the scale of the story being told.

This masterclass brings together the co-editors of AMERICAN DOCTOR and the editor of THE GREAT EXPERIMENT for a conversation about building nonfiction narratives from radically different editorial architectures. AMERICAN DOCTOR is deeply character-driven, following the experiences of three doctors working inside Gaza’s hospitals amid the devastation of war. Its editorial challenge lies in shaping traumatic, intimate, and immediate experience into a coherent emotional journey while navigating the ethics of witnessing suffering up close.

THE GREAT EXPERIMENT, by contrast, approaches story at the scale of a nation. Rather than following a single protagonist, the film constructs character through the body politic itself — weaving together multiple storylines, political currents, and civic tensions into a larger portrait of America in crisis.

Together, the editors will explore how documentary editing changes when the “character” of the film shifts from the intimate and personal to the collective and national; how they approach structure, pacing, and narrative tension across radically different scales; and how editing transforms raw material into emotional and political meaning.

Through clips, case studies, and practical reflection, this session offers a rare inside look at documentary editing as both a craft and a form of authorship — where the deepest shape of a story is ultimately forged.

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Claire Ave’Lallemant

Editor

Claire Ave’Lallemant (she/her) is a queer documentary 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 has gone on to become a Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellow and a Sundance Institute-supported artist recognized for “embracing new forms of storytelling.”

She has edited features such as FLIPSIDE (Toronto) and DROWNING IN SILENCE (Santa Barbara); series including CHOIR (Tribeca, Disney+), DOGS (Netflix), and THE PHARMACIST (Netflix); as well as shorts like FINAL FINISHERS (ESPN+, Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding Sports Documentary Short) and TRANSLATORS (Tribeca X, Best Short Award). She believes deeply that documentaries can help reimagine and build the world we want to live in.

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Stephen Maing

Co-Director, Co-Editor, The Great Experiment

Stephen Maing is an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker. His most recent films, UNION (P.O.V./Criterion Channel) and CRIME + PUNISHMENT (Hulu/IFC), won Special Jury Awards at the Sundance Film Festival and were shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. CRIME + PUNISHMENT also received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary. He was a story producer and editor on the Academy Award–winning documentary ALL THE EMPTY ROOMS (Netflix). His previous films, which he also directed, filmed, and edited—HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE, THE SURRENDER, and DIRTY GOLD—have screened internationally, received numerous awards, and were released on P.O.V., Field of Vision, and Netflix, respectively. Maing has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, United States Artists, the Sundance Institute, and NBC Original Voices, and was a recipient of the International Documentary Association’s Courage Under Fire Award alongside the whistleblowers of the NYPD12 from CRIME + PUNISHMENT. He has worked as an adjunct professor and filmmaking mentor at numerous universities and organizations.

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Christopher White

Editor

Christopher White is an Emmy-nominated documentary film editor and story consultant whose work spans more than twenty years and includes numerous award-winning films. AMERICAN DOCTOR (Sundance 2026) is his most recent project.

Other recent projects include THE LINCOLN PROJECT, a five-part series for Showtime that premiered in October 2022; BORN TO BE (2019 New York Film Festival / 2021 Best Documentary Emmy nomination); ROLL RED ROLL (2018 Tribeca Film Festival / POV season opener); LOVE FREE OR DIE (Sundance 2012 Special Jury Prize); THE KILLER WITHIN (2006 Toronto Film Festival / 2008 Best Documentary Emmy nomination); WOMEN IN BLUE (Independent Lens 2021); and THE INNOCENCE FILES (Netflix 2020). Chris is a member of ACE (American Cinema Editors).

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Ema Ryan Yamazaki

Editor

Ema Ryan Yamazaki is the director of INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART and editor of BLACK BOX DIARIES, both of which were nominated for Academy Awards in 2025. With a unique perspective as both an insider and outsider in Japan, Ema strives to tell stories that empathetically illuminate human struggle and triumph.

Ema has directed and edited three critically acclaimed features. Emmy-nominated THE MAKING OF A JAPANESE (2023) captures students and teachers over the course of a year in a Japanese elementary school. KOSHIEN: JAPAN’S FIELD OF DREAMS (2019) explores the phenomenon of high school baseball as a microcosm of Japanese society. MONKEY BUSINESS: THE ADVENTURES OF CURIOUS GEORGE’S CREATORS (2017) is a partially animated film about the couple who created the Curious George books.

Raised in Osaka by a Japanese mother and British father, Ema attended NYU’s Tisch School OF THE ARTS and began her career as an assistant editor to Sam Pollard. She has edited films for notable directors including Marc Levin and Naomi Kawase. Her latest editorial work, Poh Si Teng’s AMERICAN DOCTOR, premiered in the U.S. Competition at Sundance in 2026.

Ema is also a teacher and a founding board member of DDDD Film School, a documentary community in Tokyo founded in 2025.