All The Empty Rooms | TIFF50

I walked into this film unintentionally, but stayed for a reason.

I was meant to see another film, but in the haze of early morning screenings, I walked into the wrong theatre. It only took me about five minutes to realise I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.

Now I would’ve had time to run and catch my intended film, but instead I was stuck in my seat. Devastation and an already sniffling nose kept me there.

Showing a series of children's untouched rooms who were killed in recent school shootings in America, this short is bound to get tears flowing, yet that’s hardly its primary goal. This seven years in the making short follows Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp interviewing and photographing school shooting victims' families in their now empty rooms. But the rooms are only empty of breathing life, as they are still left the way the victim had last left them. The lingering scent of their life and who they were filled each room.

The goal of this mini-documentary is to bring back awareness to the heaviness and devastation of these school shootings. As so much of America has been desensitised to these tragic events due to their frequency. However, through this lens of focusing on those victims and the lives they had, portrayed through their rooms, we can only hope people begin to stay with these tragedies a bit more and advocate for change.

This short is a reminder that we should not forget and overlook these incidents just because they are frequent. A reminder that the victims are humans (usually children) with lives and rooms just like you and me. Lastly, A reminder that this could happen on any given day with no warning, especially in today's climate, so you must cherish every moment with those you love.

I implore you to watch this short. I challenge you to sit through its entirety, despite the devastation you’ll be overcome with. I ask that you don’t forget what you watched and how you felt. And I dare you to do something about it.