Talk:Justin Roberts (filmmaker)

Notability

The claim is WP:CREATIVE criterion 3: a person who has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant work or collective body of work that has been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews. The body of work here is two theatrical documentary features, not one, and each is independently covered on its own account.

• No Greater Love (2015), director. Full-length reviews in Variety, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice and the San Diego Reader. Acquired for United States theatrical distribution by Atlas Distribution Company and released in November 2017.
• Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplain's Journey (2024), co-director and executive producer. The primary subject of reporting in Deadline (September 2023 and September 2024), Military Times and the Deseret News. Produced by Paulist Productions, screened at the Vatican in September 2023, and opened in about 150 theaters in November 2024. Chris Pratt is credited as an executive producer.

I raise this because the obvious objection to an autobiography of a filmmaker is WP:NOTINHERITED — that the coverage belongs to a film and the subject should be redirected or merged into it. That objection is available against one film. It does not resolve two: a merge into either article leaves the other unaccounted for. Whether the combined coverage clears the bar is a reviewer's judgement and not mine to make, but this is the criterion I am asking it to be judged against, so that the question gets answered on the sourcing rather than on the fact that I wrote it.

Conflict of interest disclosure

I am Justin D. Roberts, the subject of this draft, and I wrote it. This is an autobiography in the sense WP:AUTO warns about, and I am disclosing it up front rather than leaving a reviewer to work it out. My user page lists the other articles I have a connection to, including one I wrote that is already in mainspace. I have no financial relationship with anyone in connection with editing Wikipedia: I am not paid, compensated or reimbursed for this editing, and no employer, client or affiliation is directing it. The disclosure is voluntary under WP:COI.

Because I am the subject, I am submitting through Articles for Creation rather than publishing directly, and I will not edit the article in mainspace if it is accepted. I will use edit requests on this talk page instead, and I ask uninvolved editors to rewrite or remove anything they judge promotional, self-serving or insufficiently sourced. I would rather the article be shorter and neutral than longer and flattering.

Some things a reviewer should know, because they affect how the draft reads:

• Some material is deliberately absent. I have left out my date of birth and my service decorations. The date of birth is a privacy choice. The decorations are a sourcing decision, explained in the next point. Neither is an attempt to hide anything unfavourable. Verifiability governs what may be included, not what must be.
• Where a claim rests on a press release, a press kit, or my own interview, the draft says so in the text rather than stating it in Wikipedia's voice.
• I removed the decorations sentence myself rather than leave a reviewer to catch it. An earlier version of this draft said I received the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal for Valor, attributed in the text to a 2016 GI Film Festival programme biography. That page reprints material I supplied to the festival, so it was my own account carrying a festival's name, not third-party confirmation — and the same page misstates my battalion's killed-in-action count, which is how I know nobody fact-checked it. Decorations are contentious material about a living person under WP:BLP, and in-text attribution does not cure a source that is not independent of the subject. I have no independent published source for them, so the claim is out. It should stay out unless someone uninvolved finds one.
• One claim in this draft is weaker than the rest and I am flagging it rather than defending it. The draft says I have said I served as a co-executive producer on The Hornet's Nest. That credit is supported only by interviews in which I say so. No independent published credit listing enumerates the co-executive-producer tier for that film at all. It is out of the lead and out of the filmography for that reason. If a reviewer considers even the attributed mention insufficient, removing it is reasonable and I will not contest it.

• The seminary in my education sentence is sourced to the seminary, and I want that on the record. The two degree names come from the American Press and from a peer-reviewed journal's contributor note, neither of which names the institution. For the institution I cite the Hendricks Center podcast at Dallas Theological Seminary, where the host introduces me as a graduate of its media arts program. That is the school speaking in its own publication, not a biography I supplied — which is the distinction that matters here, and it is why I dropped the GI Film Festival programme page from that sentence. It is still not a source independent of the seminary, and a reviewer who wants a third party for the institution will not find one; I looked, and it does not exist.

Unfavourable and mixed criticism of my film work is included, not omitted. The Los Angeles Times wrote that the film is not always as technically proficient as an audience might want and called its editing sometimes distracting. The Washington Post wrote that I am "not a natural documentarian" and called my framing device awkward. Both are quoted in this draft, in the Reception material, and they stay in. The film article carries the fuller critical record, including the San Diego Reader on the film's treatment of a Gold Star widow who appears briefly in it. Lightbringer07 (talk) 12:48, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Edit request: add a free photograph of the subject

I am the subject of this article and a connected contributor, declared above. The article has no image. I have uploaded a freely licensed photograph to Commons and am requesting it be added:

thumb|left|150px

Requested placement, immediately below the {{Use mdy dates}} line at the top of the article:

[[File:Justin Roberts, Kunar Province, Afghanistan, April 2011.jpg|thumb|upright|Justin Roberts after the Battle of Barawala Kalay Valley]]

Licensing. The photograph was taken by Staff Sergeant Daniel Byerly, United States Army, in the course of his official duties, which places it in the public domain as a work of the federal government ({{PD-USGov-Military-Army}}). I am not the copyright holder and am not claiming to be. My statement of provenance is the only evidence of the public-domain status; I have no published government source for it, and I would rather say so than let it be assumed.

Date, and a discrepancy I would rather raise myself. The file's EXIF timestamp is 2 April 2011, which falls inside the 29 March to 8 April 2011 span our article gives for the Battle of Barawala Kalay Valley. My recollection is that it was taken after the fighting my battalion was engaged in, and camera clocks on that deployment were not reliably set. If a reviewer would rather the caption not assert "after", then "Justin Roberts in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, April 2011" is accurate on any reading and I am content with it.

Placement is editorial judgement and I am not attached to the top of the article; the Military service section would be equally reasonable. Lightbringer07 (talk) 09:18, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Edit request: second free photograph, Military service section

Same connected-contributor disclosure as the section above. A second freely licensed photograph is now on Commons:

thumb|left|150px

Requested placement, at the top of the Military service section:

[[File:Justin Roberts with soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, Afghanistan.jpg|thumb|Roberts with soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division in Kunar Province, Afghanistan]]

Licensing. Taken by Sergeant Jason Strunk, United States Army, in the course of his official duties, which makes it a work of the federal government ({{PD-USGov-Military-Army}}). As with the photograph requested above, my statement of provenance is the only evidence of that status; I have no published government source for it and would rather say so than let it be assumed.

Two limitations, raised here rather than left to be found. The file is a screen capture of the original photograph, cropped to remove letterboxing, not the original itself; if I obtain the original I will upload it over the same filename rather than as a new file. And the date is known only to the 2010–2011 deployment, not to a day, so the file page gives the year range rather than a false precision. Lightbringer07 (talk) 09:34, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Caption amendment to the request above. I am the soldier on the far right, so the requested caption should identify me rather than leave a reader to guess which of the four I am:

[[File:Justin Roberts with soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, Afghanistan.jpg|thumb|Roberts, far right, with soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division in Kunar Province, Afghanistan]]

The Commons file description has been updated to match. Lightbringer07 (talk) 09:39, 13 August 2026 (UTC)