The semi-autobiographical feature debut of Paul Dalio’s “Touched with Fire” is certainly creating an impression.

The film, which stars Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby, takes viewers through the lives of two young poets who have been hospitalized for bipolar disorder and the journey they go through that starts off destructive but ultimately brings healing, according to a Washington Post report.

Manic depression has been thrust into the limelight lately, with other films like “Infinitely Polar Bear” and “I Smile Back” also making the rounds. But this is a personal story for Dalio, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in his 20s. Instead of looking at bipolar through an outsider’s eyes, he looks at it through his own eyes.

Dalio said his vision for the film is for people to see through the eyes of someone struggling from bipolar. He referenced Vincent van Gogh’s famous “The Starry Night” painting, which was painted from the perspective of when he looked out the window of his asylum in which he was housed in 1889 through 1890.

Dalio has quite the pedigree. He graduated from New York University and studied under director Spike Lee. All throughout his studies, he was medicated to battle his bipolar order, and felt unable to write about his own experiences, preferring instead to do safe, commercial debuts as he described them, according to the report.

But after Spike Lee told him his movie was “crap,” Dalio decided to look within for inspiration — and “Touched with Fire” was born.