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Gillian Robespierre

American film director

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ18153579
Source-derived summary

Gillian Robespierre (born June 29, 1978) is an American director and writer, known for writing and directing the films Obvious Child and Landline.

Early life

Robespierre was born to a Jewish family and raised in New York City. In 2005 she graduated from the School of Visual Arts, where she majored in Film and Video.

Career

Robespierre began her career working as a production assistant on big budget features like American Gangster. She also worked for the Directors Guild of America until 2014.

In 2009, Robespierre co-wrote (with Anna Bean and Karen Maine) and directed the short film Obvious Child, about a young woman who is impregnated after a one-night stand and decides to have an abortion. Robespierre approached Jenny Slate to star in the lead role after seeing her perform at a comedy club. Robespierre later expanded the short into her 2014 feature film debut Obvious Child with Slate once again playing the lead role. The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival where it was acquired by A24 Films.

In early 2015, Robespierre announced she was developing a comedy pilot for FX with Elisabeth Holm, who co-wrote Obvious Child, starring Jenny Slate and Ari Graynor.

Editorial summary

“Gillian Robespierre” enters the record as american film director. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gillian, Robespierre and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1978, 2005, 2014, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1978-06-29. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Gillian, Robespierre and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Gillian Robespierre” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Gillian, Robespierre and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18153579. VIAF identifies the subject as 311468216. The Library of Congress control number is no2014135223. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978, 2005, 2014 and 2009.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gillian Robespierre”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gillian Robespierre primary sources, Gillian Robespierre archive and Gillian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gillian Robespierre”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Gillian Robespierre” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.