EON claims director is inventive movie pioneer (6)
I believe the answer is:
edison
'inventive movie pioneer' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'eon claims director is' is the wordplay.
'claims' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'director' becomes 'd' (abbreviation eg in film reviews).
'd'+'is'='dis'
'eon' enclosing 'dis' is 'EDISON'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for edison that I've seen before include "The inventor is strangely onside" , "Thomas Alva ......, great American inventor" , "Inventor's" , "Incandescent light inventor" , "US inventor of over 1,000 devices" .)