Fans of S/W will likely be familiar with The New York Times’ Op-Docs series. Over the years, we’ve featured many of their distinctively curated nonfiction short films – from the 2025 Short Awards ‘Documentary Short of the Year’ and Oscar-nominee Instruments of a Beating Heart, to works by Lance Oppenheim and Elizabeth Lo, and one of my personal favorites, My Duduś. While we have featured a relatively large selection of Op-Docs on S/W, we still tend to be very selective with the films we actually feature – as their films cover a broad range of topics and styles, and only a portion fit with our own curatorial vision. That said, considering the high quality of the Op-Docs brand, some overlap in our programming is inevitable. After years of mutual appreciation, we had the chance to speak to Alexandra Garcia, Executive Producer and head of the NYT Op-Docs team.In the following interview, Alexandra took the time to dig deep into the process behind the Op-Docs selections – from screening submissions and collaborating with filmmakers, to upholding the journalistic standards of The New York Times while looking for creative and emotional approaches in their documentaries.Editors Note: The conversation has been edited and structured for readability and clarity, to better get to the core for what we hope will be an interesting insight for filmmakers, programmers and fans of short films, documentaries, and The New York Times.Can you tell me how you personally would describe The New York Times Op-Docs, and share your own path to becoming its Executive Producer?Sure. Op-Docs is a platform for short documentaries by independent filmmakers. It started in 2011, and we’ve published around 450 short nonfiction films since then. Everything adheres to The New York Times’ standards, so it’s fact-checked, but we aim for creative approaches to nonfiction.Op-Docs feels like the perfect marriage of art, nonfiction, and journalism for me.I’ve been at The New York Times since 2013, working in almost every possible video role – making creative short docs in the newsroom, producing and directing for The Weekly and The New York Times Presents, doing photography for the sports section, and working with the graphics/interactive team.I actually went to art school, and I’m still a little surprised I ended up in journalism – but Op-Docs feels like the perfect marriage of art, nonfiction, and journalism for me.Do you think there’s a difference between video journalism and filmmaking, or are they the same at the end of the day?I think video journalism and documentary filmmaking are more alike than many documentary filmmakers realise – but also more different than many journalists tend to think.To me, the biggest difference is the standards of a journalistic organization – what “nonfiction” really means. We work hard not to mislead audiences. Creative liberties that some documentaries take don’t work for us unless it’s clear to the viewer.I wish that there was a little bit more transparency in some of the work that claims to be nonfictionHowever, that doesn’t mean that we are not open to creative documentaries. We welcome creativity, we just take a lot of care in making sure that if a film features a recreation or an abstract interpretation, then that must be obvious to the audience.In an age of AI and media mistrust, transparency is vital. Hybrid films can work for us if it’s clear what’s fictionalized. If it’s not clear, then it should probably be categorized as fiction. I wish that there was a little bit more transparency in some of the work that claims to be nonfiction, because I think it’s really important for audiences to understand when something is adhering to a certain journalistic standard that they can trust it.I’m curious – what qualities define a New York Times Op-Doc, and what do you look for when making your selections?Op-Docs encompasses a huge range of topics, styles, perspectives, and formats – from live action to animation, hybrids, and even VR. How do you decide between such different kinds of films? And is there a shared sensibility that runs through them, perhaps similar to the sensibility you bring to your writing?Firstly, I’d say that we are completely open to every topic. We publish everything from personal essays to vérité films to animation. However, there are a few things that are consistent:The reason for it being a video is clear – On the internet you can choose in which medium to tell a story and I think for us it’s really important that we publish work that has to be video or it wouldn’t work.Relevance is key – more so now than ever. With so much news happening right now, it’s vital for us in the Op-Docs department to publish pieces that can sit on the homepage with a headline that makes sense alongside the rest of The New York Times coverage. A film that tells us something about the world that we live in and can have universal resonance for a global audience. Each of our films has a focused story, but hopefully also an underlying theme that can be universal and larger than the individual story.Creative, innovative approaches – While Op-Docs films should fit with the coverage of The New York Times, they should also stand out. With that in mind, we want work that captures emotion in a creative way, to distinguish it from the rest of the news and opinion reports that The Times publishes.It has to make sense for a digital platform – There’s often a big difference between films that can work really well in a theater – where you have somewhat of a captive audience – and films that work online – where you’re basically competing with every other tab that a viewer has open. To be suitable for Op Docs, films should be under 20 minutes, have a strong opening and be paced for a digital platform.Focused storytelling – We usually avoid survey-style films with many experts or argument-driven video op-eds; instead, we focus on one focused story told really well.Instruments of a Beating Heart by Ema Ryan Yamazaki is a favorite of the SotW team.Ultimately, I think the best way for people to understand what makes a good Op-Doc is just to watch a lot of Op-Docs. Our video library is free and available to anyone in the world, as we don’t geo-block.That said, here are a few recent films that I think show the range of our work:The Army We Had (Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker, 2023) – This film does one of the things video does best: It shows change over time. These filmmakers had made a feature-length documentary about the Iraq War, released in 2004, and during the pandemic they returned to interview the soldiers 20 years after the start of the war to try to understand how they make sense of their place in it. One could describe the change in these men’s faces in text, but seeing their pain and regret in these interviews as they grapple with their past is something altogether different.Instruments of a Beating Heart (Ema Ryan Yamazaki, 2024) – This is a verité film that is about adorable six-year-olds in Japan trying to mount a music concert, yes, but it’s also about something deeper: It encourages audiences to think about how children are motivated, how they are raised, and how education creates the culture in a society. It’s that undercurrent of a universal theme that I think makes this film such a great fit for Op-Docs.Christmas Every Day (Faye Tsakas, 2024) -This piece is a window into what it feels like to be a tween on social media these days. I had read plenty of stories about this topic, but it wasn’t until I saw Faye’s thoughtful, restrained look at it that I began to FEEL it.Crying Glacier (Lutz Stautner, 2025) – Climate change stories can be difficult to get audiences to watch because the news often feels so bleak and slow-moving. This film, however, uses one of the most incredible tools of video – audio – to capture something fleeting. We loved the exquisite detail captured in the sounds of a disappearing glacier. And the cinematography is stunning!View From the Floor (Megan Griffiths and Mindie Lind, 2025) – The animation in this story is delightful and funny and dark. It was that – and the intimacy of the narration about “inspiration porn” and imposter syndrome that made this film such a perfect fit for our series.I think that’s really interesting, because a lot of the aspects you just described are very similar to what Short the Week is looking for in our selections.Which leads me to the question, how do filmmakers get to be an Op-Docs selection?We find films in a lot of different ways:At film festivals – We attend in person to watch shorts programs, but we also screen a ton of short films from festivals around the world virtually.Adapt feature length documentaries – Occasionally we see feature length docs that we think would work really well for our platform, so we commission pieces that are inspired by or come from those. For example, we recently published Death of a Fantastic Machine, which was adapted from a 90-min feature that played at Berlin and Sundance.Our alumni network – As we’ve featured so many films, often our alumni will get in touch with us directly when they’re working on a new project.Open submissions – We have an open submission form, which is open to the public and we watch everything that is submitted there.We very occasionally work on films from the very beginning of production, but it’s rare. We’re not funded in a way where we can really fund production from beginning to end.I would say the best time for people to come to us with a pitch is around assembly or early rough cut. That’s usually when we can tell if a film is suitable for Op-Docs.Once a short is finished, it’s often hard for a filmmaker to let go of the version they’ve worked on for so longSince short films can be anything up to 40 minutes long and are often made to work really well in a festival setting, if we watch a film we really love but we don’t think it will work on our platform, we’ll work with the filmmakers to make a digital version of their short – which is actually a really fun and interesting process. That said, it can be challenging. Once a short is finished, it’s often hard for a filmmaker to let go of the version they’ve worked on for so long and reimagine it as something slightly different.Death of a Fantastic Machine started as a feature length documentary before Op-Docs worked with the filmmakers to make a 17-minute version.Do films need to be premieres to appear on Op-Docs?Not at all. Most of our films have already screened at festivals – we don’t require premieres. I believe that festival audiences and online audiences are different, and festivals are increasingly open to programming films already online.Can filmmakers submit both finished films and concepts?Yes. We take submissions ranging from concepts to finished films, but we require representative footage – we don’t review pitches that are just on paper. Ideally, we want an edited scene that shows how the film will be told, rather than just raw sample footage.Do you pay licensing fees for the films you feature?Yes. We license films in perpetuity, but only have a 30-day digital exclusive window. We don’t take any copyright – filmmakers retain the rights. After 30 days, they can share their films with other outlets, like Short of the Week or Vimeo Staff PicksDo you watch and compare your work to competitors like The New Yorker or The Guardian?When it comes to film, we are often looking at the same work and I think that competition is great for our industry. We all have good relationships with each other, it’s very friendly and the competition is very good for all of us.We focus less on differentiating from them and more on what works for our platform!That’s cool to hear. Being a huge New York Times fan, who also loves the New Yorker and works at Short of the Week, I think it’s all just people who love films and want to support filmmakers.To put the focus back on Op-Docs again, you talked about how you came to be Executive Producer, but what can you tell us about your team and how you share the workload?We have a very small but mighty team. Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo is our producer and Lindsay Crouse is our senior producer. We’re a part of the Opinion video team and have a couple of Associate Producers, Amanda Su and Ingrid Holmquist, who we share with the larger team. We also collaborate with the audience team, post production staff and editors from the larger Opinion apparatus.How do you view the purpose and the place of Op-Docs within the larger framework of the New York Times? And do you have a plan for where it might go in the future?I hate to bring up the official company mission – which is “We seek the truth and help people understand the world” – because it’s so nerdy, but I really do feel very strongly that Op-Docs is completely aligned with it and that’s important for me.I think there are very few mediums that can help people understand the world around them, emotionally, better than video.Op-Docs helps fulfill that mission by showing the human impact of events, often in people’s own voices. I think there are very few mediums that can help people understand the world around them, emotionally, better than video.Has your programming shifted because of changes in the world? Are there topics you would have covered a few years ago that you’d avoid now, because situations have changed.I would say that there aren’t any topics that we will shy away from, ever. However, I would say the biggest shift in this current moment is this desire for things to be truly relevant and feel like they make sense on our homepage.That said, I think our films can also make sense as counter-programming, as so much of the news in the US is political right now. We can offer something different to that, but it still has to fit the company mission.I would say that the biggest shift is that relevance has become more important than ever.OK, final question then – The New York Times recently published an Opinion article about literacy and how the internet and social media changes our behavior – the more we watch online, the less we tend to read. You’ve also spoken about the power of video – its emotion and storytelling. With this in mind, do you think that Op-Docs is a great addition for the New York Times reader? And/or could it be a gateway for users who aren’t subscribers yet to get into the New York Times.Yes to both, absolutely. The thing that I love about Op-Docs is that it’s bringing new audiences to these films, but at the same time, I think it’s bringing new people to the New York Times.There are so many people who might not go to the New York Times homepage, but who are watching Op-Docs on YouTube and I think that’s important for the brand. We need to go where the people are.I don’t necessarily think that people watching more and reading less means that it’s bad for society. I don’t think text is inherently a more virtuous medium than visual journalism and documentary. I just think that the things that audiences are watching have to be great, which is our job.