CFF'25 Daily Talks: Meet The Editors

Name: CFF'25 Daily Talks: Meet The Editors
Start: 2025-09-26T16:00:00-04:00
Location: Eighty Eights CLT

Schedule

Fri, 26 Sep, 2025 at 04:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Eighty Eights CLT | Charlotte, NC

🎬✨ DAILY FESTIVAL TALKS AT EIGHTY EIGHTS ✨🎬
Join us every day during Charlotte Film Festival for intimate, insightful convos at Eighty Eights — your favorite coffee, cocktail, and jazz bar 🍸☕🗣
📍 Just steps from IPH Cinema
🎤 Daily @ 4 PM: Film-focused talks
🕔 5PM: Stick around for casual hangs, drinks & ideas
Go behind the scenes with professional film editors as they discuss the craft, challenges, and creative decisions that shape a film. This panel will highlight the editor’s role in storytelling and conclude with a Q&A, giving attendees the chance to ask questions and gain insider insights.
Meet the Panelists:
Claire Ave’Lallemant (she/her) is a Charlotte-based 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). After assisting on several features, she was selected for the 2018 Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship where she received mentorship from Carla Gutierrez. Claire has since edited feature films such as Flipside (Toronto) and Drowning in Silence (Santa Barbara); series including Choir (Disney+, nominated for the 2024 International Documentary Association’s Best Limited Series), Dogs (Netflix), and The Pharmacist (Netflix); as well as shorts like Translators (Tribeca X, 2023 Best Short Award). In June 2025, she was selected for the Sundance Institute’s week-long Documentary Edit Residency at MASS MoCA for her work on the forthcoming feature Vestibule, recognized for “embracing new forms of storytelling and finding new language to express personal truths.”
Melissa Salpietra is an Emmy® Award-winning freelance video editor, motion graphics artist, and producer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. During her 15+ years as an editor, she has used her craft to tell stories through educational shorts, commercials, and narrative films for television and the web.
Melissa started her career at PBS, where she edited and created web videos and content for NOVA. She worked in the science video field before founding her own company, Salpietra Media. Inc. in 2012. Melissa has produced and edited award-winning educational series for non-profit clients, including PBS NC and JASON Learning, as well as edited commercial work for clients, including Wells Fargo, Academy Sports, and the Mint Museum. Her narrative work includes the short films Manhood (2019), Writer's Block (2020), Youth (2021), Everybody Don’t Electric Slide (2022), The Weight of You (2022), Like in the Movies (2024), and The Artis Residence (2025).
Melissa has a postgraduate degree in Natural History Filmmaking and Communication from the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Mikaela Shwer is an award-winning documentary editor and filmmaker known for crafting powerful, intimate stories that resonate deeply with audiences. Her debut feature, Don’t Tell Anyone/No Le Digas a Nadie (PBS/POV), earned the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award, and her follow-up, The Kids Are Not Alright, is currently making waves on the festival circuit, collecting multiple Audience and Director awards.
Mikaela's editing collaborations include acclaimed projects for Netflix, HBO, PBS, Hulu, and Apple TV. She served as editor, writer, and co-producer on HBO’s Allen v. Farrow, a four-part series that received seven Primetime Emmy nominations along with nominations from American Cinema Editors, Cinema Eye Honors, and the Hollywood Professional Association. Her recent credits include editing on Netflix’s record-breaking Harry & Meghan, HBO’s Last Call, praised for its empathy and nuance; and Netflix’s Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, where she served as lead editor and story producer, earning recognition for its focus on the victims and the systemic failures surrounding their cases.
Mikaela is also deeply engaged in investigative and socially conscious storytelling. She is an Associate of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and has been recognized as a fellow by the Logan Nonfiction Program, the Film Independent Documentary Lab, and the Dart Center Documentary Film Fellowship.
Moderated by Tim Grant.