Short Film

Nothing, Except You

Daniel Root

Northborough, MA

Advisor: Ryan Brown

Artist Bio

Daniel Root is a Massachusetts-based director and cinematographer. He is currently an enrolled senior at the University of Connecticut studying film and video production. He specializes in works centered around nature, spirituality, and faith. His debut short, A Sunday Afternoon (2025), was selected as part of the Sessions Lift Off Global Network Festival. His second short, Nothing, Except You, is currently in post-production and is slated for a Spring 2026 release. His DP works include Heavy Hitters (2026), Colleen’s Story (2026) & Bliss Resale (2025). In his free time, Daniel enjoys time with his family, friends, and in the gym.

Artist Statement

Nothing, Except You was born from my own exhaustion with the “noise” of the contemporary world and what remains when everything else is stripped away. I wanted to explore the divide between humans’ hunger for earthly belonging and the persistent and quiet pull towards the eternal.

I am making this film to move beyond the intellectual argument for faith and into the mysticism of the experience of it. I want to capture the “spiritual desert” the heavy, uncomfortable, physical reality of God’s silence. In my own life, I’ve found that faith is anything but a straight line. In reality, it is wandering, doubting, and occasionally stumbling into grace. I want this film to function as a cinematic liturgy, using a non-narrative structure to mirror how we experience the spirit. Not as a plot, but as a sequence of visual prayers.

By centering the film on a protagonist grappling with inner burdens, I am attempting to convert my personal inner conflicts into a shared language of silence and image. Nothing, Except You is a move beyond traditional storytelling. To create an environment where the audience doesn’t just observe a character’s journey but feels the weight of her silence and the stillness of her prayer.