In Joshua Seftel’s documentary short film All the Empty Rooms, CBS news correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp travel around the United States exploring the well-preserved bedrooms of children who have been killed in school shootings.
Awards Buzz spoke with Seftel about the connections that exist between this film and his previous Oscar-nominated short film Stranger at the Gate, and how impactful it has been seeing this film with certain audiences:
“Any time we show the film – we’ve had a lot of screenings, dozens and dozens – we try as much as possible to have screenings with the parents there, the parents in the film who shared the stories of their children. And I think the experience of seeing the film and then being able to hear from the parents afterwards is really important, understanding what they’ve gone through and what it’s like to have an empty room. Hearing from the parents really grounds the experience and I think people who’ve seen the film with the parents there have had a really memorable, maybe unforgettable experience that I hope stays with them and makes them want to engage with the issue, do something, get involved, share the film, tell people the stories, whatever it takes to just keep people talking about something that I think we’ve become numb to. There’s over one hundred school shootings a year in our country, and we are now at this point where we don’t even talk about it, where the stories of a school shooting might come out for a day and then we forget about it. We can’t keep track of it. We can’t become numb to this issue or it will never change. That’s our hope with the film and with sharing these stories of the families is that, at the end of the day, maybe we can create some kind of movement and change, and we’re already seeing really good things happening in that direction with the film.”
Watch the video above to hear more about the process of making the film and its impact campaign.
All the Empty Rooms is an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Short and is available to stream on Netflix.
