Phil Blattenberger was born in Annapolis, Maryland. An avid writer from a young age, Phil directed most of his energy towards narrative fiction, authoring multiple novels throughout his teens. In his early twenties he quit his day job and dropped out of school, moving to Australia in a move he credited to an unbearable existential crisis. The following months of wandering landed him in Southeast Asia, including stints in Thailand and Vietnam, experiences which would prove formative in the development of his interests. Upon return to the United States, he completed his undergraduate studies, earning a bachelor's degree in history and anthropology before eventually earning a master's in cultural anthropology, with focus on historical representation and public memory in contemporary Vietnam.In 2016 Blattenberger shifted his focus from academic and fiction-writing to the big screen, penning the screenplay for Point Man (2018) 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, then on a five-figure budget, to Cambodia, where they filmed over half of the production on an army base. They returned later in the year to film in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, becoming the first original Vietnam War narrative in American cinematic history to film on location in Vietnam. Point Man holds its world premiere on March 6, 2018 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the Cambodia International Film Festival.Blattenberger resides in North Carolina where he runs his production companies, MBG Films and Lost Galleon Pictures. Show less «