Phil Blattenberger

Phil Blattenberger is a writer and director known for Point Man (2019). He was born in Annapolis, Maryland, and at twenty-three he dropped out of college to move to Australia. Months of wandering landed him in Southeast Asia, where his experiences which would prove formative in developing his thematic interests in film and academics. He eventually earned a master's degree in cultural anthropology focusing on historical representation and public memory in contemporary Vietnam. In 2016 Blattenberger shifted his focus from academia to the silver screen, penning the screenplay for Point Man (2019) in less than three weeks. "It was a big leap," he admitted, in a 2017 interview with Yes! Weekly. "I had a big learning curve ahead of me." As a rookie director and producer, he took the cast and crew of Point Man to Cambodia, where they filmed over half of the production on a Cambodian army base. They returned to Asia later in the year to film in the Mekong Delta, becoming the first original Vietnam War narrative in American cinematic history to film on location in Vietnam. In 2018 he was nominated for Best First-time Filmmaker at the St. Louis International Film Festival, and garnered nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Sydney Indie Film Festival, where Point Man won Best Film. His second film, Condor's Nest, is slated for production in 2021.