After working for 7 years as an Avid editor and media educator at DCTV, one of NYC’s oldest independent documentary production company/nonprofit media centers, Chris Arnold founded Cultural Animal to produce and edit the 2 feature documentaries IF YOU SUCCEED and The Hand of Fatima which were shown at the WorldFest Houston, San Francisco DocFest, Indie Can, Raindance, Indie Memphis and Woods Hole film festivals.
The Hand of Fatima was selected for the 2007 and 2008 IFP Independent Film Weeks and 2008 IFP Documentary Rough Cut Lab. During its theatrical run at Anthology Film Archives, the film was favorably reviewed by The New York Times, the New Yorker and New York Magazine.

On his birthday in 2015, Chris, a big fan of the films of Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon, attended an Open House for the freshly-minted Stony Brook/Killer Films MFA Film program. By the end of that info session, his passion for independent narrative had been reignited, and he decided to go back to school to get his MFA in Film. In the Stony Brook program, Chris divided his time equally between narrative directing and screenwriting. Thanks to the excellent guidance received in the program, his first feature screenplay, Cornerstone, has won awards and been recognized in national contests. His thesis short, "A Day At The Beach," is Chris's first narrative film.