Represent Justice Announces the 2026 Ambassador Showcase

On July 23rd, the 2026 cohort of the Represent Justice Ambassador Program will gather in Los Angeles for their Ambassador Showcase, an invite-only event celebrating the culmination of their storytelling training and the premiere of their justice-centered films.

The evening marks a powerful milestone for this year’s Ambassadors: Angie Frias, Cesar Garcia, Julius Irving, Courtenie Jackson, Todd Jones, Marcus Kelley, Leigh Scott, Starling Thomas, Kenneth Webb, and Cecilia Zavala. Each filmmaker entered the program with a story rooted in lived experience, community, and a clear vision for change. After a year of training, production, editing, and impact campaign development, they will premiere films that ask what healing can look like when people are met with care instead of punishment, what freedom requires after incarceration, and what becomes possible when communities build new systems of safety for themselves.

The showcase will bring together the 2026 Ambassadors alongside friends, family, the Represent Justice team, movement partners, funders, and leaders across entertainment, philanthropy, and social impact for an intimate first look at the films before their public release.

This year’s slate moves audiences through a deeply human and urgent arc. The films explore reentry, surveillance, mental health crisis response, prison labor, criminal records, Black motherhood, childhood trauma, art, accountability, and community-based healing. Together, they challenge audiences to sit with the real consequences of punishment while imagining futures rooted in dignity, care, and repair.

Learn More About The Films:

What Grace Leaves Behind

This film by Cecilia Zavala is a poetic short film about returning home—and what it means to reclaim dignity, voice, and belonging after incarceration.

Rewritten

This film by Angie Frias follows the journeys of justice-impacted young adults at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory as they refuse to let their past define who they become.

Stocopticon

This film by Cesar Garcia reimagines technology as a tool for protection, visibility, and community power rather than surveillance and punishment.

Shackled in Freedom

This film by Courtenie Jackson exposes how employment systems continue to exclude qualified workers because of past criminal records. Through the stories shared, the film explores how fair hiring practices can address labor shortages, reduce recidivism, and create safer communities.

The Silent (R)evolution: Freedom from the Inside Out

This film by Julius Irving follows one man’s journey as he enters a Florida courtroom expecting to be released, but a judge’s words both shock and forever shape him. Faced with a system more invested in punishment than transformation, Julius begins a journey that forces him to reimagine freedom, accountability, and healing.

The Weaver in a Haystack

This film by Kenneth Webb follows one artist's journey to reclaim his identity and discover whether creativity can become a pathway to healing, stability, and transformation.

Uncarcerated

This film by Leigh Scott reminds us that another future is possible — one where care responds first. This film asks a critical question: What would happen if we treated mental health crises as public health issues instead of criminal justice issues?

No Exception to the Promise

This film by Marcus Kelley exposes a truth many Americans never pay attention to: slavery was never fully abolished. Through the exception clauses embedded in the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions, forced labor remains legal within the prison system. The film explores how this loophole continues to shape incarceration, labor practices, and public policy today.

Born Captive

This film by Starling Thomas follows Naomi, a pregnant Black woman arrested over unpaid probation fees and forced to labor alone inside a jail cell. As she fights to survive childbirth, ancestral memories connect her story to generations of women whose bodies, pregnancies, and motherhood were controlled by systems of oppression.

Loud Silence

This film by Todd Jones follows him as he reflects on surviving childhood sexual abuse, navigating trauma, incarceration, and mental health struggles, and ultimately finding purpose in helping other Black men tell their stories. It challenges audiences to confront the silence surrounding sexual violence and mental health within Black communities and imagine what becomes possible when survivors are heard.

The showcase also marks the next chapter of the Ambassador Program for this cohort. Each filmmaker will move on to lead their impact campaigns, bringing their stories to communities far and wide. Beginning in late August, Represent Justice will publicly release the films in a four-part rollout.

The 2026 cohort represents six of the nation’s top 20 states with the highest incarceration rates: California, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas, and Oklahoma. Their films reflect the realities of communities that have carried the weight of mass incarceration and the leadership of people closest to the solutions.

For Represent Justice, the showcase is not only a premiere. It is a moment of transition. These films now move from production into public life, where they will become tools for conversation, organizing, advocacy, and cultural change.

To get an exclusive first look at the 2026 Ambassador films before they are publicly released, sign up below.