Quiet Rooms

About

Outside of trauma rooms in hospitals around the country, there is a place that those in the medical field call the “Quiet Room.” According to Dr. Cornelia Griggs and Dr. Peter Masiakos of Massachusetts General Hospital, “it is a bland spot; a few soft chairs surround a table that holds a box of crisp institutional tissues. There may be a picture or two on the wall, but generally it is an unassuming room where [physicians] tell mothers about the deaths of their children, far too often because of firearm violence.”

Produced collaboratively by Emerson College students and survivors of homicide victims from the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, the documentary Quiet Rooms is an honest and poetic reflection about the impacts and root causes of gun violence in Boston’s communities, as shared by survivors in their own words.

A Look Inside the Co-Creation Process

Studio participants gathered around interviewee and posing for the camera

Social Impact Studios, facilitated by the Engagement Lab, give Emerson students and faculty the opportunity to work directly with local grassroots changemakers to co-create media projects that will make an impact in Boston and beyond.

Quiet Rooms was co-created in Spring 2022’s Social Impact Studio in documentary filmmaking, in partnership with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Gun Violence Prevention Center.

Learn more about the studio

Partners

Impact

Quiet Rooms has been seen by thousands of people, with screenings at Emerson College, Boston City Hall, Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Tufts School of Medicine, Massachusetts Correctional Institute - Concord, Tufts School of Medicine, the Imagining America conference at Tulane University in New Orleans, Harvard Medical School, the Maryland Crime Victims’ Rights Conference, the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival, and more.

The film has sparked meaningful conversations with community members affected by gun violence, medical professionals, elected officials, and stakeholders from fields such as trauma, emergency medicine, public health, research, policy and more. You can read our in-depth coverage of the conversations that have followed the film at Brigham & Women’s Hospital Stepping Strong Center and at a Boston City Hall screening hosted by City Councilor Brian Worrell.