\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCentral Coast filmmaker Conall Jones is back home in Carmel Valley after winning the Academy Award for best documentary short for \u201cAll the Empty Rooms.\u201dJones said attending the Oscars was a surreal experience and that he did not expect the film to win.\u201cWe really thought we weren\u2019t going to win,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThey read out all the titles before, and one of them got a huge applause. I love that film, \u2018The Devil is Busy,\u2019 that got the applause. In that moment, we resigned ourselves to losing. So when Jimmy Kimmel read our film\u2019s name, it actually took us a second, and then I went into producing gear.\u201dThe 30-minute documentary focuses on the lives lost to school shootings by showing the bedrooms left behind.Jones said the film is not about politics, but about making sure people do not become desensitized to the human cost of school shootings.\u201cWe go back to the feeling we had when Columbine happened, Sandy Hook happened, or Uvalde happened,\u201d Jones said. \u201cAll these mass shootings \u2014 there\u2019s this shock, and this response that we can\u2019t let this happen in our society. And then we become numb to it. So all we\u2019re trying to do is \u2014 and we don\u2019t even say \u2018gun\u2019 in the film \u2014 it\u2019s not a policy piece. It\u2019s just, let\u2019s remember that these are human beings being killed and let\u2019s do something about it.\u201dAt the end of the film, the names of children killed in school shootings since Columbine are shown. Included is 14-year-old Alisal High School student Ethan Emmanuel Rodriguez, who was shot and killed near campus in December 2025.This was not Jones\u2019 first Oscar nomination. He and director Joshua Seftel were also nominated in 2023 for another documentary short, \u201cStranger at the Gate.\u201dJones said he is now working on a couple of sports documentaries.\u201cAll the Empty Rooms\u201d is available to stream on Netflix.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tCARMEL VALLEY, Calif. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Central Coast filmmaker Conall Jones is back home in Carmel Valley after winning the Academy Award for best documentary short for \u201cAll the Empty Rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said attending the Oscars was a surreal experience and that he did not expect the film to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really thought we weren\u2019t going to win,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThey read out all the titles before, and one of them got a huge applause. I love that film, \u2018The Devil is Busy,\u2019 that got the applause. In that moment, we resigned ourselves to losing. So when Jimmy Kimmel read our film\u2019s name, it actually took us a second, and then I went into producing gear.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 30-minute documentary focuses on the lives lost to school shootings by showing the bedrooms left behind.<\/p>\n
Jones said the film is not about politics, but about making sure people do not become desensitized to the human cost of school shootings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe go back to the feeling we had when Columbine happened, Sandy Hook happened, or Uvalde happened,\u201d Jones said. \u201cAll these mass shootings \u2014 there\u2019s this shock, and this response that we can\u2019t let this happen in our society. And then we become numb to it. So all we\u2019re trying to do is \u2014 and we don\u2019t even say \u2018gun\u2019 in the film \u2014 it\u2019s not a policy piece. It\u2019s just, let\u2019s remember that these are human beings being killed and let\u2019s do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of the film, the names of children killed in school shootings since Columbine are shown. <\/p>\n
Included is 14-year-old Alisal High School student Ethan Emmanuel Rodriguez, who was shot and killed near campus in December 2025.<\/p>\n
This was not Jones\u2019 first Oscar nomination. He and director Joshua Seftel were also nominated in 2023 for another documentary short, \u201cStranger at the Gate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said he is now working on a couple of sports documentaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the Empty Rooms\u201d is available to stream on Netflix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Central Coast filmmaker Conall Jones is back home in Carmel Valley after winning the Academy Award for best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238461,238456,13097,238457,1129,238458,88,2695,238460,238459,29366,8229,206,15798,1593,74526,155469],"class_list":["post-530354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-academy-award","tag-carmel-valley-filmmaker","tag-child","tag-columbine","tag-documentary","tag-empty-rooms","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-first-oscar-nomination","tag-huge-applause","tag-jones","tag-loss","tag-movies","tag-name","tag-oscar","tag-school-shooting","tag-stranger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}