All the Empty Rooms (2025)
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2025-09 to 2026-08
A journey across the United States to memorialize the bedrooms of children lost to school shootings.
The story
Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp embark across the United States to memorialize the untouched bedrooms of children lost to school shootings. The film focuses on the personal spaces of victims from various tragedies, aiming to honor their memory through a visual and narrative exploration of the rooms they left behind.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp embark across the United States to memorialize the untouched bedrooms of children lost to school shootings. The film features the bedrooms of four specific children: Hallie Scruggs, a victim of the 2023 Nashville school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee; Dominic Blackwell, a victim of the Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, California; Gracie Anne Muehlberger, also a victim of the Saugus High School shooting; and Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares, a victim of the Uvalde school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The full project originally included four additional children who were not shown in the final film, including three victims of the Parkland high school shooting and one victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
- First release year
- 2025
- Runtime (minutes)
- 33
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Joshua Seftel
- Genres
- documentary short film
- Themes
- school violence; gun politics; memorialization
- Setting
- United States
- Premise and plot tags
- documentary; short film; school shootings
- Reception
- The film was awarded the Best Documentary Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards.
- Awards and nominations
- Best Documentary Short Film · Academy Awards · 98th · won
- Production trivia
- The full project included four additional children who were not shown in the film.; The film was released globally on Netflix on December 1, 2025.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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