Inside the Edit with BIPOC Doc Editors: COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT
About this Event Recording
Join Sundance Collab and BIPOC Doc Editors for a conversation with the editing team behind one of the most acclaimed documentaries of 2025. Come See Me in the Good Light premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Festival Favorite Award, and went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
This discussion features the film’s editor Berenice Chávez (Pamela: A Love Story) and assistant editor Aliyah Bryant (Couples Therapy).
Directed by Ryan White, Come See Me in the Good Light is an enormously moving portrait of American poet Andrea Gibson. Gibson was a celebrated writer, performer, and activist whose work addressed gender norms and LGBTQ identity. The film charts a tumultuous year toward the end of their life as they battled ovarian cancer. Far from a bleak viewing experience, the film serves also as a stirring depiction of queer love and a spirited showcase for Gibson’s verbal wit.
Come See Me in the Good Light was purchased by Apple after its premiere and is available to stream on Apple TV. The film’s many accolades include:
- Outstanding Non-Fiction Feature, Cinema Eye Honors
- Top Five Documentaries, National Board of Review
- Audience Award, Hot Docs Festival
- Best Documentary, Seattle International Film Festival
In this session, Chávez and Bryant dissect key scenes and discuss their collaboration on the edit process. The presentation concludes with an audience Q&A, where viewers learn more about how the pair edited this emotional documentary.
This event was part of the “Inside the Edit with BIPOC Doc Editors” series, a program hosted by Sundance Collab in collaboration with BIPOC Doc Editors. Follow these links to watch our previous events in this series, which included the films Spermworld, Patrice: The Movie, Sabbath Queen, and Cutting Through Rocks.
Event RecordingTeam
Berenice Chávez
Berenice Chávez is a Los Angeles-based Latina documentary film editor with a passion for shaping emotionally resonant, character-driven stories. After earning her MFA in Film Editing from the American Film Institute in 2016, she has edited several acclaimed documentary features, including Come See Me in the Good Light (Apple TV+), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Festival Favorite Award.
Her work also includes Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter (Netflix) and Pamela, A Love Story (Netflix). As a bilingual editor with roots in both Mexican and American cultures, she is drawn to stories that explore identity, intimacy, belonging, and resilience. Through her work, she focuses on finding the emotional core of a story and shaping narratives that connect deeply with audiences.
Aliyah Bryant
Aliyah Bryant is a Los Angeles-based Black documentary film and television associate editor. She earned a BFA in Film Editing and Sound Design from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and has since worked on several documentary projects, including serving as lead assistant editor on the Oscar-nominated documentary Come See Me in the Good Light (Apple TV+). Her other credits include associate editor on the docu-series Couples Therapy (Paramount+) and the Sundance Film Festival–premiering film Cookie Queens.
Working primarily in nonfiction storytelling, she is especially interested in the editorial process that shapes documentary narratives—from organizing large volumes of material to refining story structure and pacing in collaboration with editors and directors.
Soheil Rezayazdi
Moderator | Digital Course & Event Producer
Soheil Rezayazdi is a Digital Course & Event Producer at the Sundance Institute, where he produces multi-session courses, master classes, filmmaker Q&As, and other digital programs for Sundance Collab. Prior to Sundance, Soheil served as the Nonfiction Programs Manager at the Gotham Film & Media Institute. He oversaw the Gotham’s core documentary programs: the Documentary Feature Lab, the Spotlight on Documentaries project market, and the Documentary Development Initiative in partnership with HBO Documentary Films. Soheil has worked with emerging filmmakers since 2015, when he began a seven-year tenure at the Columbia University MFA Film Program. At Columbia he managed the Columbia University Film Festival (CUFF), the Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival, and the Carla Kuhn Memorial Speaker Series.
Soheil is also a freelance writer on film and pop culture with articles in Indiewire, McSweeney’s, Vice, Filmmaker Magazine, Documentary Magazine, Paper, Paste, and elsewhere. He has also served as an external reviewer for artist programs operated by Creative Capital, Kartemquin Pictures, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and the International Documentary Association. A native of Iran, he holds an MA in journalism and a BA in film studies from the University of Iowa.