Synopsis
Maya, a 40-something mom of two young kids, is trying to rebuild her life. One problem: now that she and her ex-husband have split everything, there's a big empty space where their family room used to be. In a race to move on, Maya fills the void one distraction at a time.
Director Hersh Ellis co-created the film with his mother, Mindi, based on her autobiographical essay of the same name. The Empty Room is a slow-burn character study that explores what happens when you lose the shape of your life and have to sit in the silence long enough to find something new. ​
Director's Statement
Allegedly, an emotion lasts about 90 seconds. But it’s impossible to remember that when you feel like you’re facing one the size of a monsoon. The good ones and the bad ones — can feel endless. But, there’s a set of age-old words that make a sad man happy and a happy man sad: This too shall pass.
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And while feelings may only last a minute and a half, I’ve spent much of my life trying to dodge the painful ones. When I feel them rising in my body, they seem so overwhelming, so all-consuming, that my instinct—like most people’s—is to harden. To become an emotional oak tree. As if, by not letting the pain in, I might never have to deal with it.
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But during hurricanes, oak trees snap in half while the willows survive. They bend, they surrender until the storm passes. As with all winds—literal or emotional—they subside, often quicker than we think.
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My mother’s original essay, The Empty Room, captures her attempts to be an oak tree—taking up new hobbies, a new job, new relationships—all to avoid surrendering to the grief and loss that followed the collapse of her marriage. The essay centers on one visual metaphor: a newly empty room. A space she had to walk past every day. A silent reminder. To me, that image felt deeply cinematic—simple, haunting, and true.
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Over the past year, my mom and I have worked together to adapt her essay into a film that merges our individual life experiences with loss, grief, and emptiness. From this collaboration came Maya: a woman desperate to be an oak, nearly snapping in the process. I wanted to make a film that invites us to lean in and quietly walk alongside Maya on her transformative journey to becoming a willow.