Teddies, toys and friendship bracelets: the film about the empty bedrooms of school shooting victims

"I saw that America was moving on from each school shooting quicker and quicker every time. Eight years ago, he decided to try a different approach. The documentary All the Empty Rooms, recently nominated for an Academy Award, offers up another way of looking. Over a painful, delicate and urgent 34 minutes, it follows Hartman and the photographer Lou Bopp as they visit and photograph the bedrooms of four children killed in school shootings."

"Alyssa Alhadeff's bedroom. She was among the 14 students and three staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, on 14 February 2018. A player on the girls' soccer team, her gym bag sits open on her floor. On her dresser, she kept the ticket stubs from a high school football game that she went to with her friend."

"Its tiny details are likely to destroy you. A SpongeBob SquarePants pencil pot. Friendship bracelets. Children's handwriting, scribbled on mirrors, on memory boards, on notes written for future selves. Dominic Blackwell was 14. Hallie Scruggs was nine. Jackie Cazares was nine. Gracie Muehlberger was 15."

Steve Hartman, a CBS correspondent since 1996 known for human interest stories, has covered school shootings since 1997 as they became increasingly common in America. After noticing the public moved on from each tragedy faster, he shifted his approach eight years ago. The documentary All the Empty Rooms, nominated for an Academy Award, follows Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they visit and photograph the bedrooms of four children killed in school shootings: Alyssa Alhadeff, Dominic Blackwell, Hallie Scruggs, Jackie Cazares, and Gracie Muehlberger. The 34-minute film captures intimate details of their lives through personal objects, creating a powerful memorial that emphasizes individual loss over repetitive tragedy reporting.

Read at www.theguardian.com