Steve Kerr, the Oscars, Gun Violence and All the Empty Rooms

While living in the Philippines from 1987 to 1993, I knew about a half-dozen Filipinos who died from shootings in that wonderful but gun-plagued land. Most were just casual acquaintances of mine, yet each killing hit home. At the same time, though, I became grimly resigned to thinking, “That’s life (and death) in the Philippines.”

America’s own endless plethora of firearm fatalities may lead many of us to a similar conclusion: That’s life and death in the USA. And what with everything else going on these days, addressing gun violence has dropped off the national radar.

All the Empty Rooms, which won this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film, reminds us why we should still deeply care and strive to staunch this bloody epidemic.

A Labor of Love and Pain

Available on Netflix, the intensely heartfelt masterpiece takes viewers to four homes, four kids’ bedrooms and four sets of parents whose children died in school shootings. The parents have maintained the kids’ rooms as they were on the days of their deaths, as sources of solace.

The film is a labor of love and pain. For years, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman, ironically best known for his feel-good reporting, was sometimes called upon by the network to offer reflections on mass shootings.

Hartman grew frustrated with his personal and our national numbness over the repeated massacres. He resolved to illuminate the lives of the victims, rather than their deaths.

The result is All the Empty Rooms. It’s about those rooms, those families and how Hartman and a photographer friend documented them for a multi-media essay, CBS programs such as 60 Minutes and the film itself. As he puts it, “I started to think about the bedrooms that the kids leave behind and what it would be like, how might we change as a country if all of America could stand in those bedrooms and feel the loss in that way?”

Piercing the Numbness

Standing in those bedrooms, visiting with those parents and seeing videos of those kids indeed pierces the numbness.

Much of the film comprises a cascade of images and memories..

One mom describes how her son’s room retains his scent…

Another interprets Hartman contacting her as a sign that she should help him tell her daughter’s story…

Her husband reads a letter that the girl wrote to her future self for her first day of high school, reminding herself to stay positive…

Another dad acknowledges that visiting his child’s room makes him sad, but that the sadness helps him connect with her…

Displaying her phone’s video of her daughter frolicking with the family dogs, a mother (who later spoke at the Oscars) relates how the nine-year-old knew she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up…

A most moving moment shows the silent, immensely mournful face of her husband recalling their daughter.

Showing and Sharing

The cold, hard facts of national trends hammer home the widespread severity of this trauma. Firearms are the leading cause of childhood and teenage death in the United States. A study published by the American Medical Association found that states enacting relatively permissive gun laws saw those death rates rise from 2011 to 2023, particularly where those laws are most permissive; several states with strict restrictions saw the rates drop.

I offer such findings for context; they’re by no means the film’s focus. Instead, All the Empty Rooms is all about people, not data. It’s a sober, somber and above all gentle reminder of the price so many families have paid for mass shootings. It aims to show and share, not harass or harangue.

Steve Kerr’s Trauma and Take on the Film

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is an executive producer of the film, promoting but not profiting from it. When he was an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Arizona in 1984, terrorists in Lebanon shot dead his father, American University of Beirut President Malcolm Kerr.

The trauma triggered Kerr’s fierce, lifelong dedication to combating gun violence. It’s to his great credit, and the Bay Area’s immense benefit, that this four-time NBA championship coach has brought compassion and inspiration to this and other issues.

Might the film be too hard to watch?

Here’s Kerr’s take: “Once I saw it, I was just blown away by the beauty, the sadness, the humanity, so poignantly done. And it’s important, given my advocacy for gun violence prevention, (that) you look for ways to touch everybody and avoid the political discourse that brings the issue down.

“The film perfectly threaded that needle. I’m trying to recommend everyone to watch it. It’s 35 minutes, but you should watch it. It’s hard to watch, but it’s unforgettable…

“A lot of people say to me, ‘This is hopeless.’ It’s not. We have [state and local] legislation that’s been passed frequently that is already saving lives. We know that statistically. But it’s really the movement that’s most important to me, the consensus of, ‘We have to get something done.’”

Count me among the many who watch TV, including Warriors games, partly to escape the world’s bitter realities these days. But an online Kerr interview moved me to watch the production, which in turn moved me way beyond expectations.

A Testament

The documentary is a testament to so many kids who left this world far too soon, to their folks’ strength in the face of enduring trauma and to our someday tackling gun violence on a national level.

That said, it’s just one small film. Clearly, the movement and consensus Kerr seeks are by no means ascendant.

But one thing that American and overseas experience teaches us is that any cause’s progress can take decades, including long stretches of defeat and despair. Along the way, we can keep the flame burning through efforts such as this.

Despite their unparalleled, unbearable loss, the parents opened up their homes and hearts to viewers, admirably hoping that we take away something positive.

I know I did. Along with all the grief and loss, these empty rooms are full of love.