The Stories That Matter film series hosts the Academy Award-winning Best Documentary Short Film on March 25 at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C.
The Academy Award-winning Netflix documentary “All the Empty Rooms,” directed by Joshua Seftel, follows CBS correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they film and memorialize the empty bedrooms of children who never returned home after school shootings. Hartman and Bopp spent seven years traveling across the United States documenting these rooms and the lives that inhabited – and, in a way, continue to inhabit – these spaces.
This is an emotional screening, inviting our community into the children’s bedrooms and features the parents and families who watch over them.
Before the 6:30 p.m. screening, Seftel will lead a master class on documentary filmmaking for students in the MA in Film and Media program. Following the screening, there will be a panel discussion featuring Seftel and Cass Crifasi, co-director of the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, along with additional panelists to be announced. Sig Libowitz, director of JHU’s nationally ranked graduate film and media program, will moderate the discussion.
“We’re honored to have Joshua Seftel’s beautifully affecting documentary as part of the Stories That Matter film series. ‘All the Empty Rooms’ is powerful, honest, and thought-provoking. I’m excited for audiences at the Bloomberg Center to experience this film and engage in this conversation,” Libowitz said.
This film series presents narrative features, documentaries, and short films, designed to spark conversations among filmmakers, scholars, and students. Anchored at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, the series also brings select films to Johns Hopkins campuses in Baltimore and Bologna, Italy.