Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Josh Seftel - The Power Of "All The Empty Rooms"

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Interview Only w/ Josh Seftel - The Power Of "All The Empty Rooms" · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: dot com slash chuck. So joining me now. He is
1:32
Speaker 1: the directmentory that you can see on Netflix right now.
1:35
Speaker 1: It's called All the Empty Rooms and this is uh
1:40
Speaker 1: it's it's about gun violence, but it's not about gun violence.
1:45
Speaker 1: What the doc is is about is going back to
1:50
Speaker 1: the victims of school shootings, to their parents who allowed
1:55
Speaker 1: my guest and his filmmakers. My guest is the director
1:58
Speaker 1: of this film of All the Empty Rooms, called Joshua Seftel,
2:02
Speaker 1: and it's in some ways a it's the bigger picture.
2:11
Speaker 1: And I want to talk to josh about this because
2:13
Speaker 1: I've I've done my own little things. When I was
2:15
Speaker 1: doing Meet the Press Reports, our document document series that
2:19
Speaker 1: I had put together in conjunction with me, the press,
2:23
Speaker 1: and we were constantly looking for different ways to portray
2:27
Speaker 1: gun violence, to try to break through the numbness that
2:32
Speaker 1: the public felt. And I you know, one time we
2:37
Speaker 1: featured a mortician who explained what it was like to
2:43
Speaker 1: deal with gunshot victims. And so we did our own
2:46
Speaker 1: ways to do this. This was a very powerful another
2:50
Speaker 1: powerful way to do it, and in fact, as powerful
2:54
Speaker 1: as I've seen yet. And so the director of All
2:56
Speaker 1: the Empty Rooms, Josh Seftel, joins me. Now, Joss, it's
2:59
Speaker 1: nice to meet you.
3:01
Speaker 2: Same here, Chuck, great to be here.
3:03
Speaker 1: So, I mean that's the you know, in some ways,
3:06
Speaker 1: you could say, Okay, I already know everything I need
3:09
Speaker 1: to know about this, stop right. I mean, it's a
3:13
Speaker 1: straightforward thing. And yet if you don't watch it, you
3:17
Speaker 1: don't get it.
3:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people have said that they after
3:22
Speaker 2: they watch it, they say, wow, that's not what I
3:24
Speaker 2: was expecting. And I think what has happened is that
3:32
Speaker 2: a lot of us in this country have become numb
3:37
Speaker 2: to the idea of school shootings. You know, there was
3:41
Speaker 2: a school shooting last week, and then there was one
3:44
Speaker 2: in the week before, and there are about over one
3:47
Speaker 2: hundred school shootings a year now, we don't even hear
3:50
Speaker 2: about most of them, and we've reached the point where
3:54
Speaker 2: it just becomes a headline that literally fades away within
3:58
Speaker 2: hours or even minutes.
4:00
Speaker 1: And we almost treated it like the flu. Oh there's
4:03
Speaker 1: an outbreak, it's crazy.
4:06
Speaker 2: We've we've accepted it as something that's normal, and it's
4:09
Speaker 2: not normal. And we you know, with this film, like
4:13
Speaker 2: your story about the mortician, it's it's another way of
4:18
Speaker 2: talking about the issue, but it's really what we've done
4:22
Speaker 2: is we've gone into the empty bedrooms and told the
4:25
Speaker 2: stories of each child through the objects that are left
4:30
Speaker 2: behind in that room. And there's something about that that
4:34
Speaker 2: I think has resonated with people where it forces you
4:40
Speaker 2: as a human being to feel something.
4:45
Speaker 1: You know, we've shifted on this, and i'd say, you know,
4:48
Speaker 1: you guys talked about in the in the Dock the
4:50
Speaker 1: media's role in this, and when when school shootings first started,
4:55
Speaker 1: and and sort of the patient zero in this case
5:00
Speaker 1: was the probably the University of Texas. You know, that
5:03
Speaker 1: was the modern sort of beginning of this. And in
5:08
Speaker 1: the eighties, you and I are about the same age.
5:11
Speaker 1: We grew up with the so called postal shootings, right
5:15
Speaker 1: where it was supposedly post you know, people were going
5:18
Speaker 1: member it became a phrase, going postal. Then Columbine happens,
5:24
Speaker 1: and it shifts and it's and there is something about
5:29
Speaker 1: this mass shooting virus that's in our society where you know, yes,
5:37
Speaker 1: the workplace is still a place that is a potential
5:40
Speaker 1: vulnerable spot. But we haven't stopped with the school shootings,
5:45
Speaker 1: like we haven't moved past that. It's continues to be
5:50
Speaker 1: and it's a I think we're all trying to figure
5:56
Speaker 1: out why is it accelerating?
5:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, in the in our film, Steve Hartman,
6:06
Speaker 2: who is the CBS news reporter. He's on CBS Sunday
6:11
Speaker 2: Morning and the evening news.
6:13
Speaker 1: Right, he's the good news guy. He's the good you
6:15
Speaker 1: feel better, right, He's the he is the way do
6:17
Speaker 1: you hear this one? And in a good way? Right?
6:19
Speaker 1: He makes you cry, It's it's one of those, but
6:22
Speaker 1: it's in a good cry usually exactly.
6:25
Speaker 2: And he decided, you know, seven years ago that he
6:30
Speaker 2: was sick and tired of all the school shootings and
6:33
Speaker 2: even having to report on them in a way where
6:35
Speaker 2: they would say, hey, Steve, go go figure out, like
6:37
Speaker 2: what's the silver lining on this one. You know, find
6:40
Speaker 2: a hero, find a find the libraryan that you know
6:43
Speaker 2: collected all the condolence cards, or find the EMT who
6:47
Speaker 2: got there in time to save one of the lives.
6:50
Speaker 2: And he and you know, those stories matter. But he
6:54
Speaker 2: just reached a point where he said, I don't want
6:56
Speaker 2: to do that anymore because nothing's changing. And when he started,
7:00
Speaker 2: when he covered his first school shooting, which was in
7:02
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven in pel Mississippi, he I think there
7:07
Speaker 2: were seventeen school shootings a year, which is too many.
7:12
Speaker 2: But now when we were making the film, there were
7:16
Speaker 2: over one hundred and thirty school shootings a year. So
7:21
Speaker 2: you know, you do the math on that, and it's
7:23
Speaker 2: just insane.
7:25
Speaker 1: Well, this is why I understand why many people think,
7:28
Speaker 1: is it the media's fault that this is accelerated, Not
7:32
Speaker 1: that the media causes it, but that the media helps
7:37
Speaker 1: plant the seed. Right, And look, you guys delve into this.
7:40
Speaker 1: You know, when we first covered school shootings, it was
7:42
Speaker 1: always through the perspective of the shooter. Who is this guy?
7:45
Speaker 1: Who is this person that climbed up on the Texas
7:48
Speaker 1: on the bell tower, Who is this person that was
7:52
Speaker 1: wearing a long coat leather coat, and they became infamous. Right, Yeah,
8:01
Speaker 1: and then we rightly realized, hey, what are we doing?
8:04
Speaker 1: You know, don't do this because that does you will
8:07
Speaker 1: encourage copycatters.
8:08
Speaker 2: Right.
8:08
Speaker 1: It's the same thing with with the coverage of serial
8:11
Speaker 1: killers in the eighties and how how media covered serial
8:16
Speaker 1: killers in the eighties. And I think it's a much
8:18
Speaker 1: different situation now, but it's I mean, what is the
8:22
Speaker 1: right way to do this? I think we The fact
8:26
Speaker 1: that this gets worse, not better means we're not doing
8:28
Speaker 1: this the right way. We haven't found it yet.
8:32
Speaker 2: There is you know, the most popular nonfiction programming out
8:38
Speaker 2: there is true crime. Yeah, there's something about human beings
8:43
Speaker 2: that we wanted. I personally am not interested in it,
8:47
Speaker 2: but we want to hear these stories. We want to
8:50
Speaker 2: hear about the person who did something bad. You want
8:53
Speaker 2: to understand them, judge them, maybe see them face justice
8:59
Speaker 2: or not.
9:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I have a thesis that it's just all about
9:02
Speaker 1: making ourselves feel better about our place.
9:04
Speaker 2: And you know, I think you might be right.
9:06
Speaker 1: Right, That's why this appeals so much because I I
9:10
Speaker 1: don't get it either. I don't want to see how
9:13
Speaker 1: bad humanity is to each other all the time.
9:15
Speaker 2: But I think that the news organizations, you know, are
9:18
Speaker 2: are tempted by that kind of storytelling. And it's hard,
9:23
Speaker 2: you know, because people are interested. But I do commend
9:27
Speaker 2: many of them for shifting over time because a lot
9:31
Speaker 2: of the organizations, including CBS News where Steve worked, have
9:36
Speaker 2: made a commitment to not focus on the on the
9:39
Speaker 2: shooters and to spend less time on that. And what
9:43
Speaker 2: Steve Hartman wanted to do, and this is you know,
9:46
Speaker 2: we followed him for this was a seven year project.
9:51
Speaker 2: We followed him our film crew for a couple of
9:55
Speaker 2: years of the toward the end of the project, and
9:58
Speaker 2: what he wanted to do was to shifted even further
10:01
Speaker 2: away from talking about the shooters to completely just focusing
10:07
Speaker 2: on the lives lived by these children. And that's where
10:11
Speaker 2: the empty bedrooms come in, is we you know, I
10:16
Speaker 2: haven't told you how the project started. Steve was fed
10:19
Speaker 2: up and he actually wrote a letter to every single
10:23
Speaker 2: family who lost to child since Sandy Hook and he said,
10:27
Speaker 2: I want to come to your house with a photographer
10:31
Speaker 2: and I want to take pictures of your child's empty room.
10:35
Speaker 2: And to his surprise, a bunch of people said yes.
10:42
Speaker 2: And he started to collect these photographs. And then he
10:46
Speaker 2: reached out to me three years ago and he was
10:50
Speaker 2: he said, you know, I'm starting to collect these photos.
10:52
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do with them, and do
10:55
Speaker 2: you think there might be a documentary film here? And
10:59
Speaker 2: he showed me one of the photos. It was a
11:01
Speaker 2: photo of a child's bathroom and there was a toothpaste too,
11:05
Speaker 2: with the cap left off, and you could tell and
11:09
Speaker 2: feel the sense of the child who had once been
11:14
Speaker 2: there and left that cap off, went to school saying
11:18
Speaker 2: like I'll put that on later, and never came home,
11:22
Speaker 2: and you could feel the absence literally, And I just thought, wow,
11:26
Speaker 2: this could be very powerful and a whole new way
11:29
Speaker 2: to reframe this issue. And so that was three years ago.
11:37
Speaker 2: We set out on the road a couple months after that,
11:41
Speaker 2: using credit cards, trying to figure out how to piece
11:44
Speaker 2: this together. And three years later, you know, we have
11:48
Speaker 2: this film. It's on Netflix, it's nominated for an Academy Award,
11:53
Speaker 2: and we're trying to show people a different side of
11:59
Speaker 2: the issue, which is the children, Like what is the
12:03
Speaker 2: cost of all of this? What is the cost? What
12:07
Speaker 2: is the human toll that that we're all facing from this?
12:11
Speaker 2: And because we don't get to see that. No, it
12:14
Speaker 2: doesn't cover that.
12:15
Speaker 1: We when I was telling you about the what what
12:18
Speaker 1: I actually the piece that we had done, it's about
12:20
Speaker 1: three years ago now it still sits in YouTube, and
12:23
Speaker 1: it was it was part of this. You know, I
12:26
Speaker 1: got frustrated that that the regular meet the press, I
12:29
Speaker 1: couldn't tackle these issues right for a variety of reasons, right, meaning, oh,
12:33
Speaker 1: you've got to be on the news and you've got
12:34
Speaker 1: to react to what's happening in the White House, and
12:37
Speaker 1: the Trump era is the Trump era, right, and you
12:39
Speaker 1: realize we needed an outlet. We have all the we
12:42
Speaker 1: have all the room in the world and the wage
12:43
Speaker 1: of streaming, right, and so we thought we wanted to
12:49
Speaker 1: go back to these places where there were mass shootings
12:53
Speaker 1: and just find out how people were living their lives
12:56
Speaker 1: a year later, two years later. And that's how we
12:58
Speaker 1: were at a bar, where how are people getting along
13:02
Speaker 1: now with you know, six months later because we don't
13:04
Speaker 1: go back. You know how often I've had to cover
13:09
Speaker 1: a ton of school shootings, just like Steve did. I
13:12
Speaker 1: mean that was just you know, if you if you
13:14
Speaker 1: were in the main in television media in the in
13:17
Speaker 1: the last twenty years you've had and had an anchor,
13:20
Speaker 1: You've anchored your shrif of school shootings. We always say
13:23
Speaker 1: we're not you know, hey, we'll be back. You know,
13:26
Speaker 1: we're not just telling the story right now, we're coming back.
13:29
Speaker 1: We don't come back, right we don't we By the way,
13:33
Speaker 1: when we say we're going to come back, we do
13:35
Speaker 1: mean it at the moment. You know, I really genuinely
13:39
Speaker 1: believe that, like, yeah, we should, we definitely will come back.
13:41
Speaker 1: And then stuff happens.
13:44
Speaker 2: More school shootings happen usually. And what was interesting for
13:47
Speaker 2: us was that some of the people we visited and
13:51
Speaker 2: photographed the empty rooms in their houses was they had
13:56
Speaker 2: never talked to the press. It's amazingly why they had
14:01
Speaker 2: said no. They said no, I mean, why would they
14:03
Speaker 2: want to talk to the press, you know, after they.
14:06
Speaker 1: But they need to share that, you know, in some ways,
14:08
Speaker 1: I think what you're hopefully with this, what this does
14:12
Speaker 1: for families and victims. You have to tell your story.
14:17
Speaker 1: I know it's hurts, but you have to tell your story.
14:20
Speaker 1: People need to see this. And that was exactly that
14:23
Speaker 1: was all the way back to Emmett Till. Right when
14:26
Speaker 1: Emmettill's mother said you must print these photos in Life magazine.
14:29
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, that's agreed.
14:31
Speaker 1: This is in some ways it's a derivative of that.
14:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great comparison. The families said to us,
14:40
Speaker 2: we don't want our child to be forgotten. We want
14:43
Speaker 2: the world to know about them. And we were saying
14:47
Speaker 2: to them, we're coming here to tell the world about
14:50
Speaker 2: your child and who they were and the life they
14:54
Speaker 2: lived through through the empty room, and we were very
14:58
Speaker 2: much aligned in that, and it's what they want. They
15:04
Speaker 2: want the world to not forget.
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Speaker 1: and you know, I'm sitting here watching your film and
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Speaker 1: I'm thinking at the same time, and I'm wondering if
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Speaker 1: I'm in this position for whatever reason, I'm two kids
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Speaker 1: in college. I don't know what I would want. I
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Speaker 1: don't know if I would want to say videos of
18:36
Speaker 1: them and see them alive, if I can't be with
18:42
Speaker 1: them alive. I was just thinking, you know, it was
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Speaker 1: one of those that was I didn't know if that
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Speaker 1: was gut wrenching or not. The keeping the room as
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Speaker 1: into time and see these people alive. It's spooky and
19:02
Speaker 1: I don't know how I would handle that as a
19:04
Speaker 1: as a parent. I that was a It was one
19:07
Speaker 1: of those I've just was you know, you do you
19:09
Speaker 1: let your own mind wander when you have your you know,
19:11
Speaker 1: when you when you're And I'm sure a lot of
19:13
Speaker 1: people who have watched this film have shared with you
19:16
Speaker 1: experiences like that where you just start putting yourself in
19:18
Speaker 1: that place. What would you do? How would you do it?
19:21
Speaker 1: I really connected with the mother who said, you know
19:23
Speaker 1: what I did? I want the room to smell like
19:27
Speaker 1: my son.
19:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:29
Speaker 1: And I thought about that because my kids just are
19:32
Speaker 1: in college. They're still here, they're still alive, but their
19:36
Speaker 1: rooms smell like them in my nest, and it means
19:41
Speaker 1: a lot to me. So I don't it is it is.
19:44
Speaker 1: That's what made this move film so powerful, is that
19:48
Speaker 1: you actually didn't need you barely needed narration.
19:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, well there's so there's you know that that room
19:56
Speaker 2: in Santa Clarita Dominic Blackwell's bedroom, the parents keep the
20:03
Speaker 2: dirty laundry basket. Yeah, it's been there for six years
20:07
Speaker 2: and they haven't got that. Yeah, and and they, like
20:10
Speaker 2: you said, they keep it because they don't want to
20:12
Speaker 2: lose the smell of their child. And Frank was telling
20:18
Speaker 2: me the other day, Frank's Dominic's father. He was saying
20:22
Speaker 2: that the hardest part is that you start to forget
20:26
Speaker 2: what their voice sounded like. And and I think that's
20:31
Speaker 2: why they liked having the video. You actually start to
20:34
Speaker 2: forget what their voice sounded like, and then you hear
20:37
Speaker 2: the you watch the video and you remember. So it's
20:42
Speaker 2: a it's uh, yeah, it's unimaginable.
20:45
Speaker 1: How do you compartmentalize when you make something like this?
20:48
Speaker 1: Because there are days, there were days when I'd cover
20:50
Speaker 1: school shooting. So I mean, look, I was at the
20:52
Speaker 1: White House lawn for Sandy Hook and my kids were
20:55
Speaker 1: the same exact age, right, And I was on the
20:58
Speaker 1: lawn with the Jake Tapper and Norah O'Donnell at the time,
21:02
Speaker 1: and we all had kids the same age, and we
21:03
Speaker 1: were a wreck, and we had to do live shots
21:06
Speaker 1: all day and it was exhausting and you know, no, please,
21:12
Speaker 1: it wasn't even I wasn't a victim, right, it was
21:14
Speaker 1: just you know, having to having to pull it together
21:19
Speaker 1: right and not be able to. So how do you
21:22
Speaker 1: how did you how did you compartmentalize putting this together?
21:26
Speaker 1: Because it's this, this, this really had to hit you
21:31
Speaker 1: on some days.
21:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean two of the kids in the film
21:36
Speaker 2: are this We're the same age as my daughter, my
21:40
Speaker 2: oldest daughter, nine years old. Yeah, it is. It's tough.
21:49
Speaker 2: I try not to center my experience in the in
21:53
Speaker 2: talking about the film, because that, you know, what these
21:57
Speaker 2: families have gone through.
21:59
Speaker 1: Is just, yeah, this is their experience.
22:01
Speaker 2: I get that it's unacceptable, it's it's horrible, but I
22:06
Speaker 2: think that you know the experience of being in those bedrooms.
22:13
Speaker 2: You know, I travel a lot for my work. I'm
22:15
Speaker 2: away from my family a lot this project. When I
22:21
Speaker 2: was away, every time I came home I had never been.
22:25
Speaker 2: I always loved coming home, but it was a different
22:28
Speaker 2: level of getting to see my kids again and feeling
22:34
Speaker 2: a sense of gratitude for for what I have. I
22:39
Speaker 2: think that, you know, the our hope is that the
22:42
Speaker 2: power of this film is in trying to capture what
22:47
Speaker 2: is what it was like to be in those rooms,
22:49
Speaker 2: what it was like for me and my team to
22:52
Speaker 2: go into those bedrooms, because our hope is that everyone
22:57
Speaker 2: will feel the weight of the law, will feel that absence,
23:03
Speaker 2: and it will, you know, reconnect them with something that's
23:10
Speaker 2: already within them. I mean, you think about how you
23:13
Speaker 2: felt when you heard about Sandy Hook, or how you
23:18
Speaker 2: felt when you heard about ubildy or how you felt
23:21
Speaker 2: when you heard about Columbine, and I don't think most
23:25
Speaker 2: of us feel that way anymore. When we hear about
23:27
Speaker 2: a school shooting. We're not as shocked, we're not as outraged,
23:32
Speaker 2: we're not as engaged. We might not even read the article.
23:38
Speaker 2: And what we're trying to do is to get people reconnected,
23:43
Speaker 2: to feel that those feelings again that they felt back then,
23:47
Speaker 2: because we our hope is that we can take that
23:51
Speaker 2: empathy we might feel from watching this film and channel
23:56
Speaker 2: it into change, into re engaging with issue, into having
24:01
Speaker 2: hope again that maybe we can create change because where
24:04
Speaker 2: we are right now is unacceptable.
24:08
Speaker 1: Look, it's on Netflix, which means a lot of people
24:11
Speaker 1: can see it. The question is are the right people
24:14
Speaker 1: going to see it? You know, I would love to
24:19
Speaker 1: see organized screenings of lawmakers, state houses as well as
24:25
Speaker 1: the US Capital, because you want to know that the
24:29
Speaker 1: people that have the power to do something right, we don't.
24:36
Speaker 1: You know, not everybody agrees on what the something is,
24:40
Speaker 1: but I think there's collective agreement we ought to do something.
24:44
Speaker 1: And in order to motivate people to go find find
24:49
Speaker 1: a maybe not the solution, but a mitigation strut whatever
24:53
Speaker 1: it is to at least focus on it. They need
24:56
Speaker 1: to feel this, right, They need to you know, It's like,
25:02
Speaker 1: how do you get everybody to watch this that maybe
25:07
Speaker 1: has decided. Look, I'm you know, it is not going
25:10
Speaker 1: to change my view on whether, you know, we should
25:15
Speaker 1: even manufacture weapons that can do this to the human body.
25:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well you might have noticed this, but in the
25:26
Speaker 2: film we never mentioned the word gun.
25:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's never said.
25:33
Speaker 2: And that was by design because we did not want
25:37
Speaker 2: people to have a reason to ever turn the film off.
25:41
Speaker 2: We wanted to tell a story that was purely human,
25:46
Speaker 2: that on the surface was a political that is about
25:51
Speaker 2: the absence of these children. And and you know, I
25:57
Speaker 2: think what we've been seeing is that people of all
26:02
Speaker 2: kinds of opinions are watching and are affected by it.
26:08
Speaker 2: I'll give you a couple of examples. One, we we
26:12
Speaker 2: took the photographs from the film. So these are the
26:15
Speaker 2: photos of the objects around the room, the little toys
26:18
Speaker 2: and trinkets and things that are left behind that tell
26:22
Speaker 2: the story of each child. And they're familiar. You know,
26:25
Speaker 2: there are things that if you have kids, you're going
26:28
Speaker 2: to see things that are in your kid's room. If
26:31
Speaker 2: you don't have kids, You're going to see things that
26:33
Speaker 2: probably were in your room growing up. And and we
26:38
Speaker 2: took those photos and we created a photo exhibit which
26:41
Speaker 2: is actually right now in Los Angeles and New York.
26:45
Speaker 2: And we when when they were when they were installed.
26:51
Speaker 2: They were installed by this guy who apparently was quite conservative,
26:56
Speaker 2: and we found out later he you know, he wears
26:59
Speaker 2: a T shirt that says guns aren't stupid, people are anyway.
27:03
Speaker 2: This is the guy who's hanging the photographs of the
27:06
Speaker 2: empty rooms, and halfway through the day of hanging them
27:11
Speaker 2: up in the gallery, he started to weep and he
27:17
Speaker 2: told his boss that he needed to go home. Anyway.
27:22
Speaker 2: The next day, this guy comes back in goes up
27:26
Speaker 2: to his boss and he says, I just need to
27:30
Speaker 2: tell you something. I will never wear that T shirt again.
27:36
Speaker 2: And we've heard stories like this where people who you know,
27:42
Speaker 2: you couldn't imagine that they would change their mind. But
27:47
Speaker 2: there's something about these photos and the stories of the
27:50
Speaker 2: kids that like softens people's hearts. And we just feel hopeful,
27:58
Speaker 2: you know. Steve Hartman got in an email from someone
28:01
Speaker 2: who had been a Sandy Hook denier who saw the
28:04
Speaker 2: film and watched it all the way through and he
28:07
Speaker 2: said to Stevie, said, thank you for this film. I
28:11
Speaker 2: didn't feel preached or lectured to, and therefore I was
28:15
Speaker 2: able to watch it and it opened my mind.
28:20
Speaker 1: You know what you just described there just triggered an
28:22
Speaker 1: interesting exhibit that I remember that's extraordinarily powerful at Yad
28:26
Speaker 1: Vashim in Israel, the Holocaust Museum there where fairly recently
28:35
Speaker 1: in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. You know, they have
28:39
Speaker 1: a where they know a lot of Jews lived. When
28:42
Speaker 1: there's development, there's an attempt you know, if they dig,
28:46
Speaker 1: you know, and they find stuff they try to preserve,
28:49
Speaker 1: and they ended up finding all sorts of just ordinary
28:54
Speaker 1: everyday stuff that belonged to you know, Jewish families who
28:59
Speaker 1: were founded up. And the whole display is that it
29:05
Speaker 1: is just the stuff. There's stuff that they lived when
29:09
Speaker 1: they lived in Warsaw, and you know, there's toys, there's
29:14
Speaker 1: you know, costume, jewelry, there's and it's and it you know,
29:18
Speaker 1: it just it does bring a humanity to the to
29:22
Speaker 1: the to the victory. You know, these are you know,
29:25
Speaker 1: when it comes to the Holocaust, there's still some nameless
29:27
Speaker 1: and faceless people, right and and there is something about
29:33
Speaker 1: you know that that in some ways, having these exhibits,
29:36
Speaker 1: you know, can can just humanize the situation. And it
29:43
Speaker 1: sounds like what the responses you're sharing are the it's like,
29:47
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the victims became three dimensional figures, right.
29:52
Speaker 1: I go back to I think what we were just
29:55
Speaker 1: chatting about before, the before we were talking about just politicians, right.
29:58
Speaker 1: And you know, as as a reporter, I'm eternally always
30:01
Speaker 1: looking for the third dimension and political candidates. But in
30:05
Speaker 1: some ways that's what we fail to do when we
30:08
Speaker 1: talk about victims.
30:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something about someone said to us they watched
30:14
Speaker 2: the film and they said, you know, you read a
30:18
Speaker 2: headline and you think, oh, that's someone else's child, But
30:23
Speaker 2: when you see the bedroom and you see all the
30:28
Speaker 2: objects in there, it's easier to say that's my child,
30:32
Speaker 2: or that could be my child. And I think that's
30:35
Speaker 2: the difference, is that it suddenly becomes part of your
30:39
Speaker 2: world and your life.
30:42
Speaker 1: And has this been an issue you've tackled before in
30:46
Speaker 1: documentary form or you've wanted to, or you've been looking
30:49
Speaker 1: for a way to like, you know, what's a better
30:51
Speaker 1: way to get people to focus on this issue?
30:57
Speaker 2: Well, The first film I ever made, when a long
30:59
Speaker 2: time ago, when I was twenty two, was about the
31:03
Speaker 2: abandoned children of Romania, And so it was a different
31:07
Speaker 2: kind of story about children. But at that time, in
31:11
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, communism had just fallen, Chowshsku had fallen, and
31:16
Speaker 2: it was discovered that there were over one hundred thousand
31:19
Speaker 2: abandoned children in the country. And I went there and
31:23
Speaker 2: I lived in the orphanages and documented the conditions of
31:26
Speaker 2: the children, and there was some you know, obviously that
31:30
Speaker 2: footage of seeing children tied up and treated like animals
31:36
Speaker 2: had a real resonance with the people who watched the film,
31:42
Speaker 2: and it led to the American adoption of thousands of
31:45
Speaker 2: Romanian children when it was on public television. This film
31:49
Speaker 2: is shared some of the DNA, but it's different, you know,
31:53
Speaker 2: this film is about the absence of children. This film
31:57
Speaker 2: is about the empty rooms and trying to feel the
32:03
Speaker 2: presence of someone who's gone. And and there's something that
32:11
Speaker 2: seems to be resonating with people about that. We can
32:15
Speaker 2: all imagine that happening to us, and that creates a
32:21
Speaker 2: kind of empathy, I think, which we hope will lead
32:25
Speaker 2: to good things.
32:28
Speaker 1: Did the how many of the parents volunteered sort of
32:31
Speaker 1: like how what you know, I'm just curious if there
32:36
Speaker 1: was you know, how many of them have decided to
32:39
Speaker 1: you know, I'm focusing on this right. You know, different
32:41
Speaker 1: parents do different things in response to this right. Some
32:45
Speaker 1: get galvanized and want to you know, deal with one
32:48
Speaker 1: policy issue. Others, you know, maybe it's about helping helping
32:54
Speaker 1: other victims who go through this right, that sort of thing.
32:57
Speaker 1: I'm just curious the various stu I'm sure you just
32:59
Speaker 1: heard lots of stories of how how how parents chose
33:03
Speaker 1: to grieve besides keeping the room, that's clearly I mean,
33:07
Speaker 1: you know, it made me think we all memorialize people
33:10
Speaker 1: we love in some form or another, and there's always
33:13
Speaker 1: something we're like, I'm not letting that go, you know,
33:16
Speaker 1: I'm not. You can't throw away that painting, honey, you
33:19
Speaker 1: can't get rid of that. You know, this beat up coin.
33:22
Speaker 1: You know, I've got this. I got this tattered two
33:25
Speaker 1: dollar bill that my father gave to me. Was I
33:29
Speaker 1: always got a two dollar bill when I lost a tooth.
33:33
Speaker 1: Later I'd figure out it was the same two dollar bill.
33:36
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't have a lot of money. But
33:38
Speaker 1: it was but I you know, this two dollar bill
33:41
Speaker 1: and it was just I carried into my wallet. He
33:44
Speaker 1: died in eighty eight, I had it. I still have it.
33:46
Speaker 2: You know.
33:47
Speaker 1: It's like this two dollar bill and it's just a
33:51
Speaker 1: little thing. So we you know, like I won't shave
33:55
Speaker 1: because my father had a beard, and I just somehow
33:57
Speaker 1: think I'm going to like lose his memory if I
33:59
Speaker 1: somehow shave it. Irrational, of course, but I'm just curious
34:05
Speaker 1: the various ways parents have chosen to channel their grief.
34:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, one one of the things that really
34:13
Speaker 2: struck me is, you know, we we spend time with
34:18
Speaker 2: four families, all of them lost a child, two at
34:22
Speaker 2: the Saugas High School of Shooting in Santa Clarita, one
34:27
Speaker 2: at the rob Elementary School in Uvalde, and one at
34:30
Speaker 2: the Covenant School in Nashville. And what we saw is
34:37
Speaker 2: that each family has has a different relationship with the room,
34:42
Speaker 2: some going there all the time. Even it even varies
34:46
Speaker 2: between two parents in the same family. You know, for example,
34:51
Speaker 2: the Blackwells in Santa Clarita, Nancy the mom doesn't like
34:56
Speaker 2: to go into the room at all, and Frank goes
35:00
Speaker 2: in there every day. So it's they all have different
35:04
Speaker 2: relationships with the rooms. And what is inspiring to me
35:12
Speaker 2: about all the families I met is that all of
35:14
Speaker 2: them have different political points of view, but they've all
35:20
Speaker 2: organized creative foundations in memory of their children, all four
35:27
Speaker 2: families to do different kinds of work that they deem
35:31
Speaker 2: appropriate that they think is going to help change and
35:34
Speaker 2: make things better. And I just have so much admiration
35:38
Speaker 2: for them for channeling their grief into something that's helping
35:44
Speaker 2: the world. And that's I've seen across the board with
35:49
Speaker 2: most of the families that we've met. I want to
35:53
Speaker 2: tell you one quick story about one of the rooms,
35:56
Speaker 2: you know, talking about the relationships that families have with
35:59
Speaker 2: the rooms. The mule Burgers Brian and Cindy, who lived
36:03
Speaker 2: in Santa Clarita. Their daughter Gracie was killed six years
36:07
Speaker 2: ago at the Saugus High School shooting, and right afterwards
36:10
Speaker 2: they said to themselves, like, we need to leave here.
36:16
Speaker 2: We don't want to be here anymore.
36:18
Speaker 1: Perfectly rational. It would be a perfectly rational decision. I mean,
36:24
Speaker 1: and widows regularly say, you know what, I can't. I'm
36:27
Speaker 1: not living in the house anymore. I mean, you know,
36:31
Speaker 1: just I get it right.
36:33
Speaker 2: Yes, And in their case, the thing that kept them
36:37
Speaker 2: from moving was they couldn't bring themselves to pack up
36:41
Speaker 2: the bedroom the room. Yeah, And so you know, Brian
36:45
Speaker 2: Muehlberger applied for jobs in different places and he'd get
36:48
Speaker 2: the job offer and then when it came down to it,
36:52
Speaker 2: he just couldn't. They couldn't do it, and they'd say no.
36:55
Speaker 2: And this went on for over five years. And in
37:01
Speaker 2: our film, Steve Hartman, after they collect the photographs of
37:06
Speaker 2: the empty room, he gave each family a photo book
37:10
Speaker 2: which contained all the best pictures of the child's bedroom.
37:15
Speaker 2: So he gave them this album. He gave the mule
37:17
Speaker 2: Burgers this album of Gracie's belonging all the photos that
37:21
Speaker 2: were taken. And after receiving that book, and after watching
37:28
Speaker 2: all the empty rooms the film, they finally said they
37:33
Speaker 2: were ready to move and they packed up the room.
37:38
Speaker 2: And they've since moved to a different state. And what
37:42
Speaker 2: they've done is in their new home, they're creating a
37:45
Speaker 2: garden in memory of Gracie instead of having the bedroom,
37:51
Speaker 2: so they've kind of turned it into something else. But
37:55
Speaker 2: they were able to move out of the home and
37:59
Speaker 2: pack up the room.
38:04
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Speaker 1: I imagine, almost not trying to get prescriptive right when
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Speaker 1: you're it is it is always, you know, the journalist
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Speaker 1: in you, I'm sure, was like, okay, but all right
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Speaker 1: now what? Right? Now? What? But in some ways we're
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Speaker 1: not ready for the prescriptive. I think that's the lesson
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Speaker 1: I'm taking away from the last forty years of how
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Speaker 1: we've handled these as a society. We're not, and so
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Speaker 1: we need more of We need more of these because
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Speaker 1: you need you need more people wanting prescriptive before you can.
41:32
Speaker 2: Get to prescriptive. I think I think the prescriptive exists.
41:36
Speaker 1: You know too, We just have it just will It's everywhere.
41:40
Speaker 2: It's it's you know, it's on the news, it's in
41:43
Speaker 2: and it's in most documentaries where there's a very strong
41:47
Speaker 2: point of view that you know that it is essentially
41:51
Speaker 2: alienates about half the people in the country and invites
41:56
Speaker 2: the other half to feel.
41:57
Speaker 1: Here you're trying to widen the lens, widen the mature
42:00
Speaker 1: a little bit.
42:00
Speaker 2: I just yeah, I just feel for me as a filmmaker,
42:03
Speaker 2: I mean, in those films, in that news and journalism
42:06
Speaker 2: is important. But for me as a filmmaker, what interests
42:09
Speaker 2: me is how can you tell stories that are that
42:12
Speaker 2: invite everybody in and allow them to share in potentially
42:18
Speaker 2: feeling something and potentially experiencing a story together, even if
42:23
Speaker 2: they have opposing points of view, that they could watch
42:27
Speaker 2: a story together and all get something out of it.
42:30
Speaker 2: And you know, in the case of all the empty rooms,
42:32
Speaker 2: we hope that for people who agree that we need
42:35
Speaker 2: to do better with guns and gun safety, that they
42:40
Speaker 2: that those people might feel re engaged with the issue.
42:43
Speaker 2: They might feel like, okay, a little bit hopeful that
42:47
Speaker 2: change can happen, That they might feel feelings they haven't
42:50
Speaker 2: felt in a long time when they when they think
42:52
Speaker 2: about school shootings and feel urged to do something. And
42:57
Speaker 2: then the other half we I hope that they'll feel
43:01
Speaker 2: something too deeply that makes them say, you know what,
43:06
Speaker 2: we need to figure this out. We need to change
43:10
Speaker 2: something because what is happening is unacceptable and we need
43:13
Speaker 2: to restart the conversation in a new place, which says
43:20
Speaker 2: which just simply says like, we all agree that our
43:23
Speaker 2: children need to be safe when they go to school,
43:26
Speaker 2: and how do we build from that place and restart
43:30
Speaker 2: the conversation in a constructive way that could lead to
43:35
Speaker 2: positive change.
43:40
Speaker 1: Did you ever contemplate making this feature length or was
43:42
Speaker 1: it always a short in your mind?
43:44
Speaker 2: We thought about it. We started as a short, and
43:47
Speaker 2: then the first cut of the film came in at
43:49
Speaker 2: like fifty five minutes, and is.
43:53
Speaker 1: The cutoff for the oscars? Is it forty minutes?
43:56
Speaker 2: Forty minutes? So anything under forty is a short and
43:59
Speaker 2: then anything and then I don't know what constitutes a feature,
44:02
Speaker 2: but you know, usually they're like seventy to eighty minutes
44:05
Speaker 2: at minimum minimum. So we were thinking, okay, fifty five,
44:09
Speaker 2: maybe we add another fifteen, and we're we have a
44:12
Speaker 2: short feature. But as we started editing more, we the
44:16
Speaker 2: film got shorter and it got better, and we finally
44:20
Speaker 2: got down to thirty four minutes, and we looked at
44:24
Speaker 2: it and we said, you know, what if we what
44:28
Speaker 2: if we cut out more of the talking? What did
44:30
Speaker 2: we cut out more of the dialogue? And we started
44:33
Speaker 2: just cutting and cutting and cutting, and eventually we had
44:37
Speaker 2: cut six minutes of dialogue and talking out of the
44:39
Speaker 2: film out of a thirty four minute film. But we
44:42
Speaker 2: left the film at thirty four minutes, so suddenly we
44:45
Speaker 2: had added six minutes of essentially silence to the film,
44:51
Speaker 2: which allowed people to be in the rooms, feel the absence,
44:59
Speaker 2: and and we found that that was much more effective
45:02
Speaker 2: because we weren't telling people what to think. We were
45:06
Speaker 2: just letting them go in these rooms. And then you decide,
45:10
Speaker 2: you decide what you want to feel, and you decide
45:12
Speaker 2: at the end of the film what you want to do.
45:15
Speaker 1: This is just such a reminder to me that, like
45:17
Speaker 1: you just certain things you can't convey via the word. Yeah, right,
45:22
Speaker 1: it did, it is it is, you know it is.
45:26
Speaker 1: And this is what documentary filmmaking over the last ten
45:29
Speaker 1: years is just grown by leaps and bounds. Part of
45:32
Speaker 1: it is that distribution's never been easier, right, the buried
45:36
Speaker 1: nentree has never been never been easier. It's like, I mean,
45:39
Speaker 1: if you thirty years ago, where do you distribute this short? Right? Yeah?
45:47
Speaker 1: I mean I'm just right. I mean just imagine, you know,
45:50
Speaker 1: maybe you convinced the folks over at CBS Sunday morning,
45:53
Speaker 1: hey let's do a thirty let me do a thirty
45:55
Speaker 1: minute piece, and of all programs that might light a
46:00
Speaker 1: thirty minute piece, it's it's a Sunday morning, right. Yeah,
46:03
Speaker 1: but that's difficult, right, that's a that's a one shot,
46:07
Speaker 1: Like where would this have gone? I mean, this is
46:10
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the beauty of of of what
46:13
Speaker 1: you know. It's funny. I don't think we all realized
46:15
Speaker 1: how hungry people were for documentaries until we got a
46:19
Speaker 1: platform like Netflix in our everyday life in Hulu and
46:22
Speaker 1: all these places. Now that that that have made that
46:26
Speaker 1: if you know, there's always been these great documentarians out
46:30
Speaker 1: there ready to make these films. There just wasn't any
46:33
Speaker 1: place to put them.
46:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's true. Thirty years ago it would
46:38
Speaker 2: have been it would have played at festivals, maybe in
46:42
Speaker 2: a couple of theaters before a feature, maybe otherose.
46:46
Speaker 1: And it's always please. I grew up, we had the
46:48
Speaker 1: one you know, every town had the one theater that played,
46:52
Speaker 1: you know, that had the docs. Right, it was always
46:55
Speaker 1: the same theater that also had the foreign films, right,
46:57
Speaker 1: you know, that was like the only place you could
46:59
Speaker 1: get that stuff.
47:00
Speaker 2: You know, that's right. But you're right, it wouldn't have
47:02
Speaker 2: been seen by you know, this film has already been
47:05
Speaker 2: seen by millions of people because of because of Netflix,
47:08
Speaker 2: and you know they acquired the film at after the
47:12
Speaker 2: tellur Ride Film Festival where we premiered.
47:15
Speaker 1: And so hard to get funding for this, I mean
47:18
Speaker 1: you said you used a lot of credit cards because
47:20
Speaker 1: I can imagine you know, it's not a it. You
47:24
Speaker 1: can't sit there and say, yeah, I definitely think we'll
47:26
Speaker 1: be able to sell this. I mean, you know, you
47:28
Speaker 1: don't know if the folks at Netflix or A or
47:30
Speaker 1: at an Amazon or at a Hulu or a Peacock
47:32
Speaker 1: might say, yeah, I don't I don't know that people
47:36
Speaker 1: we don't want, you know, we don't want something that
47:40
Speaker 1: makes people shut the platform off. I mean, I hate
47:42
Speaker 1: to be that cynical.
47:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's just say that there's not a lot of
47:46
Speaker 2: ROI on short documentaries. We you know, films like this
47:51
Speaker 2: are made out of passion and out of care.
47:56
Speaker 1: Well. I'm pretty involved with the folks at Docs d
47:58
Speaker 1: DC Docs, and we used to do a film festival
48:00
Speaker 1: to meet the Press Film Festival for five or six years,
48:02
Speaker 1: and it was only for shorts. Yeah, and it was
48:07
Speaker 1: a whole world of filmmakers that I was realizing were underserved.
48:11
Speaker 1: It's an underserved community with tremendous content.
48:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, all the people that all the people that
48:23
Speaker 2: were part of this film, all the people that eventually
48:25
Speaker 2: came on board and gave us funding or helped us
48:28
Speaker 2: in different ways where they just cared about the issue.
48:31
Speaker 2: None of them expected to make money. We didn't make money.
48:35
Speaker 2: We lost money, but that's not why we made the film.
48:38
Speaker 2: We made it because all of us want to see change.
48:42
Speaker 1: Happen, and documentaries are like good investigative story books, right,
48:48
Speaker 1: you know, only about one out of one hundred actually
48:50
Speaker 1: make money. They're not meant to make money, They're meant
48:51
Speaker 1: to amplify a story, amplify an idea. On those fronts,
49:00
Speaker 1: let me close with this. What's next for you?
49:05
Speaker 2: Well, in the immediate future, we're about to you know,
49:10
Speaker 2: the voting for the Academy Awards is happening started today,
49:13
Speaker 2: started on February twenty sixth, got it, and it goes
49:17
Speaker 2: to March fifth.
49:18
Speaker 1: So we're kind of, oh, it's campaigning. Huh.
49:21
Speaker 2: We've been campaigning because we you know, our hope is
49:24
Speaker 2: that look, being nominated is amazing. We've gotten so much
49:29
Speaker 2: attention and brought it to the subject of school shootings
49:33
Speaker 2: and gun safety because of the nomination, and we're so
49:40
Speaker 2: grateful for that, and also the families who shared their
49:44
Speaker 2: stories of their children and their dream of making sure
49:47
Speaker 2: the world knows about their kids is coming true. And
49:52
Speaker 2: you know, if we whether or not we win the Oscar,
49:54
Speaker 2: obviously winning the Oscar would amplify that and you know,
49:59
Speaker 2: help with this issue. But we're really happy about where
50:03
Speaker 2: we've gotten to and we're not going to stop working
50:06
Speaker 2: on this. We are going to continue traveling the country
50:11
Speaker 2: and the world with this film, and we're we and
50:15
Speaker 2: we have this photo exhibit, which is going to continue
50:18
Speaker 2: to travel to different cities around the country for the
50:21
Speaker 2: next year or at least. Well.
50:23
Speaker 1: The photo exhibit feels like an incredible sort of secondary
50:28
Speaker 1: way to bring attention to this, not just to the
50:31
Speaker 1: topic and the and the film itself.
50:34
Speaker 2: And you can put it in public places, which is
50:36
Speaker 2: what we've done. You know, it's currently it's in Sunset
50:40
Speaker 2: Triangle Plaza in Silver Lake, and it's in Dumbo in Brooklyn,
50:47
Speaker 2: and you can just walk by it and check it out.
50:50
Speaker 2: And you know, hundreds of people every day are walking
50:53
Speaker 2: by and just taking it in. And we want to
50:57
Speaker 2: keep doing that.
50:57
Speaker 1: No, I mean it's look, I don't know whether you
50:59
Speaker 1: can get people to intentionally notice, but in some ways
51:02
Speaker 1: you almost want to get the unintended, to get it
51:04
Speaker 1: into unintentional public the public spaces where people stumbled into.
51:08
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
51:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Joshua was great and it's a what to me,
51:13
Speaker 1: what's important about it as a as an artist? Is
51:16
Speaker 1: it how important it was as a visual story? Right?
51:21
Speaker 1: And that you know, I don't know if any judges
51:23
Speaker 1: are listening, but I think that should be a huge criteria.
51:26
Speaker 1: It's not just whether the topic is powerful, not whether
51:29
Speaker 1: the words are powerful. But you're making up film, right,
51:32
Speaker 1: you know, is it visually powerful? And needless to say,
51:35
Speaker 1: it's visually powerful.
51:37
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks Chuck for giving me the chance to
51:40
Speaker 2: talk about it.
51:40
Speaker 1: And sure, yeah, absolutely, all right, maybe i'll see in
51:44
Speaker 1: the campaign trail. You've done with campaigns?
51:47
Speaker 2: Huh?
51:48
Speaker 1: Are you done with campaigns? Are you done covering political campaigns?
51:52
Speaker 2: Do you know what? Did I tell you? I made
51:53
Speaker 2: a film called Taking on the Kennedys. Do you know
51:55
Speaker 2: about that one?
51:56
Speaker 1: Oh? Which one was that? It was a familiar It was.
52:00
Speaker 2: About Patrick Kennedy's campaign, his first US congressional campaign in
52:07
Speaker 2: Rhode Island.
52:08
Speaker 1: Oh, I remember this in the from the Other Right.
52:11
Speaker 2: For he I followed his opponent, Kevin Vigilante, who was
52:15
Speaker 2: a Republican. And uh, it was a very kind of
52:19
Speaker 2: funny and maddening story. Yeah, and it was on PBS.
52:25
Speaker 1: It was very it was I do now remember this.
52:27
Speaker 1: It was. It wasn't the most flattering.
52:30
Speaker 2: Portrait, probably not back in the day, and I'm a Democrat,
52:34
Speaker 2: but back in the day it was you know, films
52:40
Speaker 2: like that really got seen. You know, when there were
52:45
Speaker 2: fewer channels and and so it was it was very popular.
52:49
Speaker 1: But right, well that was that was basically actually when
52:52
Speaker 1: we were talking about where would a film like this be,
52:55
Speaker 1: maybe p PBS was the was the the that was
52:59
Speaker 1: the home run. Right, if you've got a PBS pick up,
53:01
Speaker 1: you're like great at least.
53:03
Speaker 2: And a lot of people watched it there too, right, yeah,
53:06
Speaker 2: Right now it's not as much. There's it's harder to
53:08
Speaker 2: get audiences anywhere. They're much more, you know, right, who.
53:14
Speaker 1: Knows how this gets into people's algorithms, right, however that
53:17
Speaker 1: works exactly these days? Well, Joshua, good luck with the campaign.
53:22
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, with the campaigning, it's it's a
53:25
Speaker 1: it's a I know that's a process.
53:26
Speaker 2: And and are you still involved with DC docs? Uh?
53:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, whenever I can be. I mean, you know, whether
53:33
Speaker 1: it's hope, you know, putting together program helping with their programming,
53:36
Speaker 1: or amplifying their docs and all of that. Jamie sure
53:42
Speaker 1: is you know Jamie, I know Sky Sidney Okay, Sky's
53:46
Speaker 1: your partner.
53:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we actually I was talking with Sky the
53:50
Speaker 2: other day, so I do a I interview my mom
53:55
Speaker 2: on CBS Sunday morning, and we're on there regularly where
53:59
Speaker 2: I just talk to her about her life and she
54:01
Speaker 2: lives in DC and you know, what's going on in
54:05
Speaker 2: her life and her opinions on things. And we've been
54:08
Speaker 2: on for thirteen years. Anyway, she recently moved back to
54:11
Speaker 2: d C. And so I was talking with Sky at
54:14
Speaker 2: sun Dance about about this, and we decided we're going
54:18
Speaker 2: to try to have my mom be the person who
54:22
Speaker 2: tells you to turn off your cell phones and other
54:26
Speaker 2: things for the festival. So we're going. So we're getting
54:29
Speaker 2: involved with DC docs.
54:31
Speaker 1: Well, then I look forward to seeing you in whatever
54:33
Speaker 1: way that Jamie recruits me to get involved. Great and
54:37
Speaker 1: at a minimum, I'd like to use my podcast to
54:40
Speaker 1: amplify And I'm a you know, I probably probably at
54:43
Speaker 1: least once a month have some documentary filmmaker.
54:45
Speaker 2: On, So grateful for that. And when when do you
54:49
Speaker 2: think you're running this?
54:51
Speaker 1: We'll drop it next week, Okay, com during voting, don't worry.
54:54
Speaker 2: Sooner the better I know.
54:55
Speaker 1: I got you. We just did a feature length. You're
54:59
Speaker 1: not in competition, but we just had I'm trying to
55:05
Speaker 1: I'm like blanking in the title of the of the film.
55:07
Speaker 2: But Alabama solution.
55:10
Speaker 1: No no, no, no about that used body camera footage.
55:13
Speaker 2: Perfect neighbor, yes, perfect neighbor.
55:15
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, Gita, I agree.
55:18
Speaker 2: I was with her last night. We're all we're all
55:20
Speaker 2: going to the same part.
55:21
Speaker 1: You're on the same circuit. Yeah no, no no, and uh
55:24
Speaker 1: yeah you're not. Don't worry. You're in two different categories.
55:26
Speaker 1: We are ye. Also you know we I am so
55:30
Speaker 1: the check podcast is promoting GETA and We've got We've
55:32
Speaker 1: got people were promoting in both categories.
55:35
Speaker 2: Here Joe Love, We're we're I'm having lunch with her
55:38
Speaker 2: today too, so I'll.
55:39
Speaker 1: Say hi, please do okay, thanks a lot
55:43
Speaker 2: Thanks Big kar