Official Trailer
The Story
About the Film
More than a decade after Miss Representation examined the ways mainstream media and popular culture have shaped and constrained women’s access to power, director Jennifer Siebel Newsom revisits that urgent inquiry in Miss Representation: Rise Up. Fifteen years later, the forces limiting women’s agency have not disappeared — they have evolved, intensified, and taken root in an increasingly volatile digital landscape. As AI, algorithms, and deepfake technologies reshape the media ecosystem, they are also enabling new forms of gender-based harassment and manipulation aimed at undermining and silencing women and girls.
Grounded in the experiences of a new generation, Miss Representation: Rise Up follows young women navigating this shifting terrain, weaving their personal stories together with insights from leaders across media, politics, culture, and academia. Together, they confront the forces working against women’s progress and imagine new pathways toward equity, agency, and power.
Directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Written and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Camille Servan-Schreiber, and Gretchen Miller.
This film contains references to suicide. Viewer discretion is advised.
Director's Statement
When I premiered my first documentary, Miss Representation, 15 years ago, I had just given birth to my first child, a daughter. Miss Representation was inspired by my desire for young girls to grow up using their voices, realizing their power, and becoming leaders who could create necessary change in the world. With the global success of Miss Representation and the immense impact of The Representation Project, I was optimistic about the progress we were collectively making. In fact, we were seeing so much progress, I hoped The Representation Project wouldn’t need to exist 15 years later and that a sequel to Miss Representation wouldn’t be necessary.
Unfortunately, amidst progress comes backlash. And, in this case, it is extreme. We are witnessing a new cultural backslide to women’s voices and power. With the online manosphere and the rollback of Roe v. Wade limiting women’s basic rights over their own bodies, the online backlash to women’s progress is occurring at an unprecedented rate and at scale. As the largest cultural communicator of our time, there is no doubt technology is being weaponized to silence women. We’re watching in real time as online harassment, cyberbullying, stalking, and threats of violence against women and girls bleed into grave consequences offline.
Enter AI. AI learns from the internet and social media — technology largely created by men — so it mirrors the most extreme and sexist parts of our culture. Is it any wonder 99% of AI deepfakes target women and girls and 96% of them are non-consensual pornography? The result is a downturn in women’s and girls’ mental health, safety, and leadership aspirations.
This should be considered a very real public health crisis.
I made Miss Representation and Miss Representation: Rise Up as a concerned parent who wants more for our world’s children. As a mother of four children — two daughters and two sons, I’ve seen this all firsthand. My eldest daughter is now almost an adult, and I’ve even seen her peers alter their bodies, succumb to eating disorders, and die by suicide because of these critically harmful aspects of technology.
But I’ve also experienced the harms of technology myself, as someone who uses my voice online and off. Whether via bots, political adversaries, or foreign governments committed to seeing our country struggle, I am one of many women who receive vile social media comments — some of which hope I get sexually assaulted, others which threaten my life and that of my family’s.
For me, documentaries are a narrative art form that entertains, educates, and inspires cultural and political change for the betterment of our children and future generations.
Please enjoy the young women in Miss Representation: Rise Up who are extraordinarily inspirational and the sage adults whose wisdom and expertise ground us in our reality and what is possible when we come together to alter the status quo. May this film inspire us all to use our voices, stand in our power, create meaningful change in tech, and turn the cultural tide towards gender equity for ALL. And, may we ALL Rise Up together.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom
Director, Writer, and Producer
About the Team
About The Director
Jennifer Siebel Newsom is an award-winning filmmaker, influential thought leader on gender equality, and the First Partner of California. After graduating with honors from Stanford University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, she wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning documentary Miss Representation (2011) which explores the media’s misrepresentation of women and girls and the resulting underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence in America. As a result of Miss Representation’s impact, she launched The Representation Project, a nonprofit organization that uses film, media, and education as catalysts for cultural transformation. Her second film as a director, The Mask You Live In (2015), explores the boy crises in America and how America’s narrow definition of masculinity is harming boys, men, and society at large. Her third film, The Great American Lie (2019), unveils how the US value system of money, power and control has glorified individualism, institutionalized inequality, and undermined the ability of most Americans to achieve the American Dream. Jennifer’s fourth film as a director Fair Play (2022) takes a deep look at domestic inequity, making visible the invisible care work historically held by women and illuminating the benefits to men and the family when they lean into more care at home. Jennifer’s upcoming film, Miss Representation: Rise Up exposes how technology is the newest backlash against girls and women’s mental health, agency, and political efficacy with misogyny and sexism on steroids. The film premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Jennifer also executive produced the Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s documentary The Invisible War (2012) and was an executive producer on the Emmy Award-winning documentary The Hunting Ground (2015) as well as On the Record (2020).
Jennifer’s films have been seen by tens of millions of people worldwide, and The Representation Project’s social action hashtag campaigns have reached nearly one billion people. The Representation Project is responsible for single-handedly shifting the norm of sexist Super Bowl ads with the #NotBuyingIt campaign. Similarly, their #AskHerMore campaign transformed sexist reporting on the red carpet, and empowered women in Hollywood to address inequalities in the industry, giving early momentum to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.
Since becoming First Partner of California, Jennifer has championed various issues related to gender equity and raising healthy, whole children, launching the initiatives #EqualPayCA, California For All Kids, California for All Women, and California for All Communities. Jennifer lives in California with her husband, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and their four young children.
Camille Servan-Schreiber
Producer
Camille Servan-Schreiber is an award-winning documentary filmmaker known for producing compelling, thought-provoking films. Her work includes the Peabody Award-winning Eames: The Architect and the Painter, Land of Gold (Telluride, 2021), and 37 Words, a four-part series on Title IX for ESPN, Disney+, and Hulu. Her honors include the Golden Spire Award from the San Francisco Film Festival, a national Emmy nomination, and the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France. She is co-founder of Bread and Butter Films.
Gretchen Miller
Producer
Gretchen Miller is a documentary film producer at The Representation Project. In partnership with Hello Sunshine, she produced Fair Play (2022), a documentary that highlights the invisible labor women historically shoulder, and champions a future where equality begins at home. Miss Representation: Rise Up is her second producer credit.
About The Representation Project
The Representation Project (TRP), founded by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, uses storytelling, film, media, education, and advocacy to expose the injustices created by harmful gender stereotypes and shift people’s consciousness toward change. Through award-winning films, youth programs, educational curriculum, interactive campaigns, strategic partnerships, and social impact initiatives, TRP challenges the status quo and works to protect the mental health, safety, and power of women and girls while equipping young people with the knowledge and skills to fight sexism in a digitally shaped world. Ultimately, TRP’s work, built on the enduring power of film and continued education, aims to transform culture so that everyone, regardless of gender, race, class, age, sexual orientation, or circumstance, can fulfill their potential.
About Abramorama
Abramorama, the theatrical releasing division of AB2 Media Group, is a preeminent global distribution and marketing partner for nonfiction, narrative, sports, science, and music films. Over the course of more than 25 years, Abramorama has distributed and marketed hundreds of films.
Upcoming films include Alex Gibney’s Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie and Rory Kennedy’s The Trail of Alec Baldwin. Abramorama has continued its streak of successful releases, with titles including Never Stop Chasing, a Dolby Vision / Dolby Atmos profile of celebrity storm chaser Reed Timmer that landed a coveted release in AMC theaters nationwide during the ’26 summer blockbuster season; award-winning filmmaker Ivy Meeropol’s Ask E. Jean, held over at the IFC Center for 5 weeks; Billy Preston: That’s The Way God Planned It, which opened at Film Forum in February 2026 with the #1 per-screen average for the weekend; and the Robert Reich docu-portrait The Last Class, the #5 highest-grossing documentary of 2025, held over 12 weeks at the Quad in NYC due to popular demand, selling out screenings nationwide. Earlier this year the company partnered with Sobey Road Entertainment, National Geographic and Disney+ on the theatrical release of Werner Herzog’s Ghost Elephants, which launched with a coast-to-coast screening event and live Q&A simulcast to more than 115 theaters before streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. Other notable releases include 2DIE4, the company’s first IMAX exclusive feature, as well as Benjamin Flaherty’s Shuffle and Alexis Lloyd’s Group — both New York Times Critics’ Picks — and Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere, the documentary on the legendary photojournalist executive produced by Michael Rosenberg, Sid Ganis, and Rob Friedman.
