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All the Empty Rooms

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All the Empty Rooms

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Summary

In this moving short documentary, a journalist and a photographer set out to memorialize the bedrooms left behind by children killed in school shootings.

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Review

A star rating of 4 out of 5.

Calum Baker

This Oscar-winning short documentary follows American TV journalist Steve Hartman as he concludes a long-gestating project: documenting his country's proliferating school shootings via the now empty bedrooms of murdered children. It's far from easy viewing as Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp visit four sets of grieving parents across California, Texas and Tennessee, who have kept the rooms - bedding, stuffed toys, handmade art - largely preserved. Two of the adults mention the smell of their late kids, in just one of the film's many affecting nods to how memories can linger via physical spaces, objects and sensations. One victim, teenager Gracie Muehlberger, had her next couple of days' outfits planned; they still hang on her rail. Director Joshua Seftel structures his film around Hartman's four visits in 2025, allowing the parents to memorialise their children and providing the viewer a simple, stark sense of what is taken from the world in the wake of these violent events. Between each scene, the reporter shares his motivations for the project, which provides its own moving subplot - that of a journalist known for his cheery human-interest pieces choosing to take a stand against one of his society's more peculiar and disturbing regular phenomena.

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7.5/10

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Credits

Cast

rolenameSteve HartmanSteve HartmanLou BoppLou Bopp

Crew

rolenameDirectorJoshua Seftel

Details

Released on

2025-01-01

Languages

English

Guidance

Swearing

Formats

Colour

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