Directed by Isabella Grace Cohn, a 21-year-old native Coloradan, this documentary follows Isabella as she embarks on a journey to uncover the roots of sexual assault. Through candid interviews with young adult and teen survivors, perpetrators, and experts, the film paints a powerful portrait of the choices both survivors and perpetrators can make to break the cycles of harm.
What sets Watch You Rise apart is its bold focus on those most often left out of these conversations—youth, especially Black, Indigenous, youth of color, and the LGBTQIA+ community. The film fills a critical representation vacuum by amplifying the voices of young people whose experiences are rarely acknowledged in mainstream media and popular rhetoric about sexual assault. Isabella’s personal story is woven into this narrative, as she confronts her own trauma and the generational silence surrounding her family’s history of abuse, adding layers of vulnerability, conflict, and hope.
This documentary is not just about raising awareness—it’s about fostering action. By centering youth voices, Watch You Rise creates space for new dialogues around sexual harm, accountability, and healing. It invites viewers—whether activists, advocates, educators, parents or simply individuals who care about the future of our society—to rethink how privilege, oppression, and accessibility shape the way we respond to sexual violence. This is more than just a film; it’s an urgent call to rethink and reshape the systems that perpetuate harm, and to encourage real, tangible change.
Watch You Rise calls for societal transformation, questioning how a culture fixated on sex fails to provide proper education, justice, and care for youth especially those in marginalized communities. The film challenges judicial and educational systems, pushing for alternative approaches to justice and advocating for policy changes that will support both survivors and perpetrators. By amplifying youth voices and aiming for real change in how we address these critical issues, this documentary fosters conversations about sexual harm, accountability, and healing.
Watch You Rise tackles sexual harm by empowering youth and addressing systemic issues. The film encourages honest dialogue and drives tangible change in individuals, couples, and communities through education, transparency, and accountability, inspiring young people to lead transformative efforts.
Watch You Rise
Every 9 minutes child protective services finds evidence for a claim of child sexual abuse.
LGBTQIA+ people (16+) are nearly 4 times more likely to experience violent victimization, compared to non-LGBT people.
LBT women are 5 times more likely than non-LBT women to experience violent victimization.
The risk of violence for GBT men is more than twice that of non-GBT men.
One in 5 women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives.
One out of every 4 Black and Indigenous women of Color are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives.
It has been over 65 years since segregation was “ended” although it still continues schools: nationally, part of why this disparity exists is because predominantly nonwhite school districts receive $23 million less in funding compared to white districts with the same number of students. When funding is insufficient, schools struggle to provide the resources needed for comprehensive and inclusive sex education.
Black students nationwide are far more likely than white students to receive abstinence-only instruction.
35 states require schools to emphasize the importance of abstinence when sex education or HIV/STI instruction is provided.
17 states provide abstinence-only sex education
21 states require instruction on condoms or contraception when sex education or HIV/STI instruction is provided.
12 states do not require sex education or HIV/STI instruction to be any of the following, by law: age-appropriate, medically accurate, culturally responsive, or evidence-based/evidence-informed.
12 states require sex education or HIV/STI instruction to include information on consent.
10 states have policies that include affirming sexual orientation instruction on LGBTQ identities or discussion of sexual health for LGBTQ youth.
4 states explicitly require instruction that discriminates against LGBTQ people
5 states have laws requiring comprehensive sex education (CSE). Of these:
3 states (CA, OR, WA) require comprehensive sex education to be taught in all schools
2 states (CO and IL) require sex education curriculum to be comprehensive, IF it is taught in school, however, sex education is not required to be taught.
Watch You Rise explores:
What are the root causes of the sexual assault epidemic?
What does healthy sex and intimacy look like?
How can youth safely navigate the challenges of intimacy and sexuality and with intentionality and agency?
What are the outcomes of youth and young adults seeing themselves represented in the media’s conversations about sexual assault?
How can youth confront harm with accountability and abandon tactics of shaming, isolation, and/or complacency?
How do we turn conversations about sex, sexual harm, and healing, often considered taboo and uncomfortable, into something uplifting, engaging, and transformational?
What does a healthy intergenerational and interpersonal dialogue about sexual harm and non harmful sex look like?
