Started by the New York Times Opinion section in 2011, Op-Docs is an award-winning series of short documentaries curated from works by both renowned and emerging filmmakers from around the world. A long-time partner with IFC Center, Op-Docs returns this fall to screen a group of acclaimed films from Iran, Japan, Mexico and the US, followed by a conversation with filmmakers.

A MOVE (26 min)
Director: Elahe Esmaili
Country: Iran
A filmmaker returns to her hometown, Mashhad, Iran, to help her parents move to a new apartment. Influenced by the Women, Life, Freedom protest movement, she politely refuses to wear a hijab to a family gathering. “A Move” brings us inside an Iranian family navigating political change, religious tradition and familial expectations.

CHRISTMAS, EVERY DAY (14 min)
Director: Faye Tsakas
Country: USA
CHRISTMAS, EVERY DAY offers a slice-of-life view of preteen influencers Peyton and Lyla Wesson, ages 11 and 12, as they perform for their online fans under their mother’s watchful guidance. As Peyton and Lyla shift between performance and reality, rural life is juxtaposed with the patina of the virtual world, and ideas of female confidence, self-presentation as empowerment and self-branding come to the fore.

MAS Y MAS Y MAS FLORES (24 min)
Director: César Martínez Barba
Country: USA/Mexico
The cempasúchil flower, used during the Day of the Dead to guide spirits back home, travels throughout Mexico City and encounters people who have lost a loved one to the pandemic.

INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART (23 min)
Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Country: Japan
First graders in a Tokyo public elementary school are presented with a challenge for the final semester: to form an orchestra and perform “Ode to Joy” at a school ceremony. Their journey reveals the Japanese educational system’s tenuous balance between self-sacrifice and personal growth as it teaches the next generation to become part of society.