Chris Dowling grew up in Dallas, Texas. As soon as he turned 18 years old, he along with his best friend, moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in writing and acting.

"As soon as I got out there, I knew I wanted to write more than acting, but I did both," said Dowling.

Chris Dowling is now a multi-talented writer, director and producer who has optioned multiple properties that span both genre and medium. He wrote and directed his first feature in 2009, the award-winning noir comedy Rocky Slyde.

He has since gone on to work on numerous other projects including his documentary Asperger's Are Us and his 6-part HBO follow-up docu-series On Tour With Asperger's are Us.   

Dowling also wrote and directed Run the Race. His latest project is The Man From Nowhere which took just eight days to film.

"It was pretty cool. It was like a Master Chef or Iron Chef where they're like, here are the ingredients, go! We knew we had to do this quickly."

The Man From Nowhere centres on a prodigal father who discovers he is dying. He seeks to reconcile his relationship with his son who is battling alcoholism and is trying to understand his father's past decisions and his newfound faith.

"It plays out. The son is not as receptive as the father in the prodigal son story, but it puts them back together, and they have to try to repair this broken relationship before it's too late."

Dowling says the movie prompts us to reflect on our lives and reconcile our priorities as we realize it's never too late to make amends or express our love to others.

"We all have broken relationships. It doesn't have to be a father-son relationship," Dowling explains.

"You watch this relationship play out, and it's two people that should, for all intents and purposes, be having an amazing relationship. They're family, but they've let ego, pride and hard-headedness just get in the way and we can all relate to that in some facet of our life."

Not only does this new film help us to reconcile our past and heal and restore broken relationships, but Dowling also hopes it will help parents grow in faith and accountability so they can be an example of Christ to their children.

Today on Connections, Chris shares the inspiration behind this new movie and how they managed to film it in just eight days.