Best Shoutout To A Local At The Oscars
Producer Conall Jones’ win for Best Documentary Short Film All the Empty Rooms
It’s not every day you see a guy from Cachagua and Carmel Valley wearing a tux on the red carpet at the Academy Awards, but producer Conall Jones has been there twice – and in 2026, made it to the stage to accept an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film for his work on All the Empty Rooms. It’s a heartbreaking 34-minute documentary in which the camera brings viewers into the bedrooms of children who were murdered in school shootings. For Jones, the recognition was much more than a glitzy career highlight – it was a continued call to action that we can and must do something to save kids from being gunned down at school, because we come to connect with them and their families’ grief. “Great films create empathy and understanding,” Jones said at the time. “It feels especially important now, when so much of our media landscape is designed to fragment rather than connect us.” Congrats to him for connecting us, and for his well-earned victory.