Film critic, programmer, and linguist, Claire Valade has been active in the Montreal cultural and film scene since the late 1980s. She experienced the heyday of the Festival des films du monde de Montréal and began her career as a volunteer for the legendary Festival de films de femmes de Montréal, later becoming the programming director at Cinema Rialto. She has long collaborated with the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Cinéma Parallèle, and Excentris in programming and publications. She has curated various tributes, as well as the original documentary program for Vithèque at Vidéographe (2007). Currently, she contributes to the magazines Panorama-cinéma and Séquences and has served as president of the Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma (2016-2019 and 2022-2024). In her daily life, she applies her vast general knowledge to her work as a linguist. She has also briefly been a filmmaker in her spare time and is still working on her first book..

Above all, she programs films that explore the concept of time (present, future, passing) and the question of memory. Documentary essays and genre overlaps, such as autofiction or docufiction, as well as comedy in documentary, resonate with her and fascinate her immensely.