Timeliness / Timelessness:

Claire Ave’Lallemant 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. In 2018, after assisting on several features, Claire was nominated for the inaugural year of Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship’s Diversity In The Edit Room mentorship. She has gone on to edit documentary series such as Choir, which was nominated for IDA’s Best Limited Series in 2024 as well as The Pharmacist and DOGS. Her recent feature projects include Flipsid and Drowning in Silence. She has been asked to serve on the juries for IDA’s Best Editing and Best Feature categories as well as Charlotte Film Festival’s Best Documentary and was selected for the inaugural Nonfiction Hotlist with the forthcoming feature, Vestibule. 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.

Rabab Haj Yahya is a Palestinian-American documentary editor based in New York. Most recently, Rabab has edited COEXISTENCE, MY ASS!, winner of multiple awards including the Sundance U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award.

Her work includes the Critics’ Choice-nominated Speed Sisters, the surveillance exposé The Feeling of Being Watched, and the Emmy-nominated Another Body (SXSW Special Jury Award, 2023), which takes a chilling look at deepfake abuse. Other recent credits include The Legend of the Underground, and the Emmy-nominated Apart.

Her work also spans shorts and international series for platforms like Al Jazeera and Vox, including the award-winning short doc, Love the Sinner, and the viral series The Secret Life of Muslims.

In addition to her work as an editor, Rabab has served as an advisor for the Sundance Institute Documentary Edit and Story Lab (2023) and continued as a mentor for the Sundance Contributing Editors program. Rabab also mentors through programs such as Chicken & Egg Pictures and the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship. She has also provided training and consultations in West Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East, the latter earning her the Sulafa Jadallah Award for Outstanding Contributions to Women’s Cinema.

Fluent in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, Rabab brings a unique cross-cultural perspective and loves to work on stories that elevate marginalized voices.

Michelle Mizner is an Academy and Emmy Award®-winning documentary film producer and editor on staff at Frontline PBS. Films and projects she has cut and produced have broadcast internationally, screened at top tier festivals including Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, DOC NYC and CPH:DOX, and have been awarded by the Peabodys, World Press Photo, Overseas Press Club, Edward R. Murrow Awards and the duPont-Columbia Awards. Most recently, Michelle produced and edited Mstyslav Chernov’s feature documentary 2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA. Prior to that, she produced and edited Chernov’s first feature documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Audience Award. For her editing, Michelle was nominated for an ACE Eddie and Cinema Eye Honor award, and won a British Film Editors award. Later, the film was nominated in two categories for the BAFTAs, winning in Documentary Feature, and won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America and American Cinema Editors.

Viridiana Lieberman is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. She most recently edited THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR, which world premiered at Sundance in 2025 and won the U.S. Documentary directing award. She’s edited many features and series, most notably the Emmy-award winning films The Sentence, I Am Evidence, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power,Through Our Eyes: Apart and the Oscar shortlisted Call Center Blues. An avid women’s sports fan, her directorial debut, Born To Play premiered on ESPN and ABC in 2020. Following a semi-professional women’s tackle football team for a season, the film was a result of her book Sports Heroines on Film (published by McFarland) which analyzed patterns of representations of female athletes throughout film history. Other notable projects she’s edited are Sony Pictures Classic’s Carlos, the ESPN 30 for 30: Breakaway and The Criterion Channel’s Queer Futures series. Viridiana wants to be a part of creating specific work that pushes storytelling into new forms of approach. Always rooting with the personal character-driven narratives that shape not only our imaginations but how we see the world we want to be in.